HOMEBURG  MEMORIES 


Finally   the  bass   catches   up   with   the   cornets. 
Frontispiece.     See  Page  176 


Homeburg  Memories 


BY 

GEORGE   FITCH 

AUTHOR    OF    "AT   GOOD    OLD    SIWASH," 
"SIZING   UP    UNXLE    SAM,"   ETC. 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS    BY 

IRMA   DEREMEAUX 


NON-PvEFER' 


*m  si 


colWAD-QHS 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND   COMPANY 

1915 


Copyright,  1915, 
By  Little,  Brown,  and  Company. 


All  rights  reserved 


Published,  February,  1915 


THE   COLONIAL   PRESS 
C.   H.    SIMONDS   CO.,    BOSTON,    U.  S.  A. 


TO 

MY  FATHER 


M577iK>c 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I.     The  4:11  Train      .  . 

II.     The  Friendly  Fire-Fiend 

III,  Homeburg's        two       Four-Hun 

dredths     .... 

IV.  The  Servant  Question  in  Home 

burg  .... 

V.  Homeburg's   Leisure   Class 

VI.  Homeburg's  Worst  Enemy   . 

VII.  The  Homeburg  Weekly  Democrat 

VIII.  The  Homeburg  Marine  Band 

IX.  The  Auto  Game  in  Homeburg 

X.    The   Homeburg    Telephone    Ex- 
change    .... 

XI.    A  Homeburg  School  Election 

XII.     Christmas  at  Homeburg 


1 


PAGE 

I 

26 


47 

7i 

9i 
116 

142 

171 

200 

230 

254 
278 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Finally  the  bass  catches  up  with  the 

cornets        ....  Frontispiece 

It  seemed  to  me  then  as  if  she  must 
have  come  from  heaven  by  air- 
LINE     ......      PAGE       l8 

"  She's  out,  boys,"  he  says  .         .  148 

In  Homeburg  you  come  home  to  the 

whole  town        ....  284 


Homeburg   Memories 


THE    4:11    TRAIN 

In  Which  the  World  Comes  Once  a  Day  to 

Visit  Homeburg 

HEL-LO,  Jim!  Darn  your  case-hard- 
ened old  hide,  but  I'm  glad  to  see 
you!  Wait  till  I  unclamp  my 
fingers  from  this  suit  case  handle  and  I'll 
shake  hands.  Whoa  —  look  out!!  That's 
the  fourth  time  that  chap's  tried  to  tag  me 
with  his  automobile  baggage  truck.  He'll 
get  me  yet.  I  wish  I  were  a  trunk,  Jim. 
Why  aren't  they  as  kind  to  the  poor  trav- 
eler as  they  are  to  his  trunk?  I  don't  see 
any  electric  truck  here  to  haul  me  the 
rest  of  the  way  into  New  York.    It's  a  long, 

1 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

long  walk  to  the  front  door  of  this  station, 
and  my  feet  hurt. 

That's  the  idea.  Let  the  porter  lug  that 
suit  case.  I'd  have  hired  one  myself,  but 
I  was  afraid  I  couldn't  support  him  in  the 
style  you  fellows  have  made  him  accus- 
tomed to.  It  was  mighty  nice  of  you  to 
come  down  and  meet  me,  Jim.  I've  been 
standing  here  for  five  minutes  in  this  in- 
fernal mass  meeting  of  locomotives,  trying 
to  keep  out  from  underfoot,  and  getting 
myself  all  calm  and  collected  before  I 
surged  out  of  this  howling  forty-acre  depot 
and  looked  New  York  in  the  eye.  It's 
nothing  but  a  plain  case  of  rattles.  I  have 
'em  whenever  I  land  here,  Jim.  Dump  me 
out  on  Broadway  and  I  wouldn't  care,  but 
whenever  I  land  back  in  the  bowels  of  a 
Union  Station  I'm  a  meek  little  country 
cousin,  and  I  always  want  some  one  to 
come  along  and  take  me  by  the  hand. 

It's  the  fault  of  your  depots.  They're 
the  biggest  things  you  have,  and  it  isn't 

2 


THE   4:11    TRAIN 


fair  for  you  to  come  at  me  with  your  big- 
gest things  first.  Every  time  I  start  for 
New  York  I  swear  to  myself  that  Fm  going 
to  go  into  a  fifty  thousand  dollar  dining- 
room  full  of  waiters  far  above  my  station, 
and  tuck  my  napkin  in  my  collar,  just  to 
show  I'm  a  free-born  citizen;  and  I'm  going 
to  trust  my  life  to  crossing  policemen,  and 
go  by  forty-story  buildings  without  even 
flipping  an  eye  up  the  corner  and  counting 
the  stories  by  threes.  I'm  mighty  sophis- 
ticated until  I  hit  the  city  and  get  out 
into  a  depot  which  has  a  town  square  under 
roof  and  a  waiting-room  so  high  that  they 
have  to  shut  the  front  door  to  keep  the 
thunder  storms  out.  Then  I  begin  to 
shrink.  And  by  the  time  I've  walked  from 
Yonkers  or  thereabouts,  clean  through  the 
station  and  out  of  a  two-block  hallway, 
with  more  stores  on  either  side  than  there 
are  in  all  Homeburg,  and  have  committed 
my  soul  to  the  nearest  taxicab  pirate,  I  feel 
like  a  cheese  mite  in  the  great  hall  of  Karnak. 

3 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

No,  sir;  when  I  get  into  a  big  city  depot, 
I'm  a  country  Jake,  and  I  need  a  compass 
and  kind  words.  I've  suffered  a  lot  from 
those  depots.  I  missed  a  train  in  Wash- 
ington once  because  I  figured  it  would  take 
me  only  ten  minutes  to  go  from  my  hotel 
to  the  train.  But  I  counted  only  the  dis- 
tance to  the  front  door  of  the  Union  Sta- 
tion. By  the  time  I'd  journeyed  on  through 
the  fool  thing,  my  train  had  gone.  Once  I 
missed  a  train  in  the  Boston  station  be- 
cause I  didn't  know  which  one  of  the  thirty 
tracks  my  train  was  on.  I  guessed  it  was 
somewhere  to  the  right,  and  I  guessed 
wrong.  It  was  twenty-four  tracks  away 
to  the  left,  and  I  couldn't  get  back  in  time. 
So  I  went  into  their  waiting-room,  which 
is  as  big  as  a  New  England  cornfield  and 
has  all  the  benches  named  for  various 
towns.  I  had  to  stand  up  two  hours  be- 
cause I  couldn't  find  the  Homeburg  bench. 

I'm  an  admirer  of  big  cities,  Jim,  and  I 
wouldn't   have  you   take   a  foot  off  your 

4 


THE   4:11    TRAIN 


Woolworth  building,  or  a  single  crashity!! 
bang!!  out  of  your  subways,  but  I  wish 
there  was  a  little  more  coziness  in  your 
depots.  Why,  at  Homeburg  I'm  nearer 
the  train  at  my  house  than  I  am  in  New 
York  after  I've  got  to  the  station.  It's 
great  to  have  a  depot  so  big  that  it  takes 
the  place  of  mountain  scenery,  but  it's 
hard  on  the  poor  traveler,  even  if  it  does 
have  all  the  comforts  of  away-from-home 
in  it.  And  then  it  swallows  up  things  so. 
It  takes  away  all  the  pleasure  of  having 
a  railroad  in  the  town.  I  suppose  five  hun- 
dred trains  come  into  this  station  every 
day,  but  they're  just  trains  —  nothing 
more.  You  don't  get  any  fun  or  informa- 
tion or  excitement  out  of  them.  You  can't 
even  chase  them  —  they  bang  a  gate  in 
your  face  when  you  try.  I'll  bet  you  don't 
get  as  much  comfort  and  fun  out  of  all 
these  five  hundred  trains,  Jim,  as  we  do 
out  of  the  4:11  train  at  Homeburg. 

No;   it's  not  any  better  than  your  trains. 

S 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

It's  not  as  good.  You  can't  get  raw  oysters 
and  magazines  and  individual  cocktails 
and  shaves  on  it.  All  you  can  get  is  cin- 
ders and  peanuts,  and  I  would  advise  you, 
if  you  were  hungry,  to  eat  the  former  and 
put  the  latter  in  your  eye.  It's  the  kind 
of  a  train  you  New  Yorkers  would  ride  on 
and  then  write  home  telling  about  the 
horrors  of  travel  in  the  great  West.  But 
it  means  everything  to  Homeburg.  It 
means  a  lot  more  than  the  half  dozen 
limited  trains  which  roar  through  our  town 
fifty  miles  an  hour  every  day  and  have 
made  us  so  expert  at  dodging  that  we  will 
develop  kangaroo  legs  in  another  genera- 
tion. It's  our  train.  Here  in  New  York 
a  hundred  trains  come  in  each  morning 
from  Chicago,  New  Orleans,  Everywhere 
and  points  beyond,  and  the  office-boy  next 
door  to  the  depot  doesn't  stop  licking 
stamps  long  enough  to  look  up.  But  when 
old  Number  Eleven,  which  is  its  official 
railroad  name,  pulls  into  Homeburg  from 

6 


THE   4:11    TRAIN 


Chicago  each  afternoon,  loaded  with  mail, 
news,  passengers,  home-comers,  adventur- 
ers, mysterious  strangers,  friends,  brides, 
heroes,  widows  and  coffins,  you  can  just  bet 
we're  there  to  see  her. 

It's  the  town  pastime.  We  all  do  it. 
Whenever  a  Homeburg  man  has  nothing 
else  to  do  at  four  o'clock,  he  steps  over  to 
the  depot  and  joins  the  long  line  which 
leans  up  against  the  depot  wall  and  keeps 
it  in  place  during  the  crisis.  Some  of  them 
haven't  missed  a  roll-call  in  years.  Old 
Bill  Dorgan,  the  drayman,  has  stood  on 
the  platform  every  day  since  the  line  was 
built,  rain  or  shine.  Josh  James,  the 
colored  porter  of  the  Cosmopolitan  Hotel, 
knows  more  traveling  men  than  William 
J.  Bryan.  If  he  was  absent  from  his  post, 
the  engineer  wouldn't  know  where  to 
stop  the  train.  The  old  men  come  crawling 
down  on  nice  days  and  sun  themselves  for 
an  hour  before  the  train  arrives.  The  boys 
sneak  slyly  down  on  their  way  from  school 

7 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

and  stand  in  flocks  worshiping  the  train 
butcher,  who  is  bigger  than  the  Washing- 
ton Monument  to  them.  Sometimes  a  few 
girls  come  down  too,  and  hang  around, 
giggling.  But  that  doesn't  last  long.  We 
won't  stand  for  it  in  our  town.  Some  mis- 
sionary tells  the  girls'  parents,  and  then 
they  suddenly  disappear  from  the  ranks  and 
look  pouty  and  insulted  for  a  month,  and 
we  know,  without  being  told,  that  a  couple 
of  grown-up  young  ladies  of  sixteen  or  more 
have  been  spanked  in  the  good  old-fash- 
ioned way.  Homeburg  is  a  good  town,  and 
it  makes  its  girls  behave  even  if  it  has  to 
half  kill  them. 

You  haven't  any  idea,  Jim,  how  much 
bustle  and  noise  and  excitement  and  gen- 
eral enthusiasm  a  passenger  train  can  put 
into  a  small  town  for  a  few  minutes.  Just 
imagine  yourself  in  Homeburg  on  a  cold 
winter  afternoon.  It's  four  o'clock.  The 
sun  has  stood  the  climate  as  long  as  it  can 
and   is   getting   ready  to  duck  for  shelter 

8 


THE   4:11    TRAIN 


behind  the  dreary  fields  to  the  west.  If 
you  ran  an  automobile  a  mile  a  minute 
down  the  walk  on  Main  Street  you  wouldn't 
have  to  toot  for  a  soul.  Now  and  then  a 
farmer  comes  out  of  a  store,  takes  a  half 
hitch  on  the  muffler  around  his  neck,  puts 
on  his  bearskin  gloves  and  unties  his  rig. 
You  watch  him  drive  off,  the  wheels  yelling 
0:1  the  hard  snow,  and  wonder  if  it  isn't 
more  cheerful  out  in  the  frozen  country 
with  the  corn  shocks  for  company.  It's 
the  terrible  half  hour  of  bleak,  fading  light 
before  the  electricity  is  turned  on  and  the 
cozy  dark  comes  down  —  the  loneliest  hour 
of  the  winter's  day. 

You've  stood  it  about  as  long  as  you 
can,  when  you  notice  signs  of  life  across 
the  street.  Three  men  carrying  satchels 
are  steering  for  the  depot.  Dorgan's  dray 
is  rattling  down  the  street.  Dorgan's  dray 
would  make  a  cheerful  noise  if  it  was  the 
last  sound  on  earth.  Little  flocks  and 
groups  of  people  begin  plodding  across  the 

9 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

square.  You  know  them  all.  Gibb  Ogle 
is  going  over  to  watch  the  baggageman 
load  trunks.  It  is  Gibb's  life  work.  Pelty 
Amthorne  is  a  little  late,  but  he'll  have 
time  to  arrange  himself  against  the  east 
end  door  and  answer  the  roll-call,  as  he 
has  for  thirty  years.  Miss  Ollie  Mingle  is 
going  over  too.  She  must  be  expecting 
that  Paynesville  young  man  again.  If  the 
competition  between  her  and  Ri  Hawkes 
gets  any  keener,  Ollie  will  have  to  meet  the 
train  down  at  the  crossing  and  nab  the 
young  man  there.  Sim  Atkinson  is  taking 
a  handful  of  letters  down  to  the  station  as 
usual.  Ever  since  he  had  his  row  with 
Postmaster  Flint,  he  has  refused  to  add  to 
the  receipts  of  the  office,  and  buys  his 
stamps  of  the  mail  clerk.  It  is  Sim's  hope 
and  dream  that  sometime  the  annual  re- 
ceipts of  the  Homeburg  post-office  will  just 
miss  being  enough  to  bring  a  raise  in  salary. 
Then  Sim  will  bring  it  to  Flint's  attention 
that  he  would  have  bought  his  ten  dollars' 

10 


THE  4:1  r    TRAIN 


worth  of  stamps  that  year  at  home,  if  Flint 
hadn't  advertised  his  lock  box  for  rent 
when  he  neglected  the  quarterly  dues. 
Watching  Sim  thirst  for  revenge  is  as  much 
fun  as  having  a  real  Indian  in  town. 

There's  the  headlight  half  a  mile  down 
the  track!  She's  coming  fast,  ten  minutes 
late,  and,  because  you've  been  lonesome  all 
afternoon  and  need  exercise,  you  slip  into 
your  coat  and  hustle  down.  Just  as  you 
get  to  the  depot,  Number  Eleven  comes  in 
with  a  crash  and  a  roar,  bell  ringing,  steam 
popping  off,  every  brake  yelling,  platforms 
loaded,  expectation  intense,  confusion  ter- 
rific, all  nerves  a-tingle,  and  fat  old  Jack 
Ball,  the  conductor,  lantern  under  arm, 
sweeping  majestically  by  on  the  bottom 
step  of  the  smoker.  Young  Red  Nolan 
and  Barney  Gastit,  two  of  the  station 
agent's  innumerable  amateur  helpers,  race 
for  the  baggage  car  with  their  truck,  making 
a  terrible  uproar  over  the  old  planks.  The 
mail  clerk  dumps  the  sacks.     Usually  he 

11 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

gets  a  stranger  in  the  shin  with  them. 
Nothing  doing  to-day.  Just  missed  a 
traveling  man.  We  still  tell  of  the  time  the 
paper  sack  scooted  across  the  icy  platform 
and  stood  Mayor  Andrews  on  his  head. 
He  wanted  to  abolish  the  whole  post-office 
department. 

I've  always  realized  what  the  city  gate 
must  have  meant  to  the  medieval  loafers, 
because  I've  watched  Homeburg's  city  gate 
at  the  4:11  train  so  often.  There's  Mrs. 
Sim  Estabrook  getting  home.  Must  have 
been  unexpected.  No  one  to  meet  her. 
Wonder  if  Sim's  sick  again.  I'll  call  up 
pretty  soon.  Wimble  Horn's  been  to  Chi- 
cago again,  evidently.  Wonder  if  he'll 
dump  his  last  eighty  acres  into  the  Board 
of  Trade.  Who's  the  fine-looking  duck  in 
the  fur-lined  coat?  Not  a  transient,  evi- 
dently. He  passed  Josh  by.  Must  be 
visiting  somebody.  Yes;  Mrs.  Ackley's 
kissing  him.  That  might  mean  a  scandal 
in  New  York,  but  at  home  it  means  rela- 

12 


THE   4:11    TRAIN 


tives.  Poor  old  Jedson  Bane's  back,  I  see. 
Looks  pretty  bad.  Hospital  didn't  help 
him.  Guess  he's  not  long  for  us.  Hello, 
Jed,  old  man!  How  are  you?  Better? 
That's  fine.  You're  looking  great!  For 
the  love  of  Mike,  will  you  take  a  swift  look 
at  what's  got  off?  I  believe  it's  from  col- 
lege. They  don't  wear  clothes  like  that 
anywhere  else.  Oh,  yes,  of  course,  that's 
why  the  Singers'  automobile  came  down. 
Don't  know  what  we'd  do,  now  that  the 
circus  has  passed  us  up,  if  it  wasn't  for 
Sally  Singer.  She  imports  a  new  specimen 
from  the  University  about  every  two  weeks. 
The  crowd  is  off,  and  you  hurl  a  few 
good-bys  at  the  travelers  getting  on.  Our 
two  editors  check  them  off  as  they  go.  The 
Argus  and  the  Democrat  get  all  their  news 
at  this  train.  There's  no  slipping  in  and 
out  of  town  in  Homeburg.  One  and  all  we 
face  the  gantlet.  Young  Andy  Lowes  hates 
to  have  us  beg  him  not  to  miss  the  morning 
train  back,  as  we  do  three  times  a  week; 

13 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

but  he  simply  has  to  go  to  Jonesville  that 
often,  and  we  all  know  why,  and  he  knows 
we  know.  The  Parsons  are  rid  of  their 
Aunt  Mary  at  last.  She's  worse  than  an 
oyster.  Put  her  in  a  guest-room  and  she 
grows  fast  to  it.  They've  had  her  for  six 
months  now.  Hello!  Peter  Link's  son  is 
going  down  to  Jonesville.  Guess  he's  got 
his  job  back.  Andy  would  be  a  good  boy 
if  he  would  only  stop  trying  to  make  the 
distilleries  work  nights.  There  goes  old 
Colonel  Ackley  on  his  weekly  trip.  Won- 
der if  he  thinks  he  fools  any  one  with  that 
suit  case.  Ever  since  the  town  went  dry, 
he's  had  business  in  the  next  county. 
Hello,  Colonel!  Don't  drop  that  case. 
You'll  break  a  suit  of  clothes!  Watch  him 
glare. 

The  engine  has  gotten  its  breath  by  this 
time.  Ever  notice  how  human  an  engine 
sounds  when  it  stops  after  a  long  run  and 
the  air-brake  apparatus  begins  to  pant? 
Old  Ball  has  been  fussing  for  a  minute  and 

14 


THE   4:11    TRAIN 


now  he  yells  "  'Board."  Aunt  Emma  New- 
comb  gets  in  a  few  more  kisses  all  around 
her  family.  She's  going  down  to  the  next 
station.  The  engine  gives  a  few  loud  puffs, 
spins  its  wheels  a  few  times,  and  the  cars 
begin  moving  past.  Hurrah!  Something 
doing  to-day.  That  grocery  salesman  who 
gets  here  once  a  week  is  coming  across  the 
square  two  jumps  to  a  rod.  Go  it,  old  man! 
Go  it,  train!  Ball  will  always  stop  for  a 
woman,  but  the  drummers  have  to  take 
her  on  the  fly.  There!  He's  on  —  all  but 
his  hat.  Red  Nolan  will  keep  that  for  him 
till  his  next  trip. 

She's  moving  fast  now.  The  brakeman 
hops  the  next  to  the  last  car  with  grace  and 
carelessness.  From  every  platform  de- 
voted friends  and  relatives  are  spilling  — 
it  is  a  point  of  honor  in  Homeburg  to  re- 
main with  your  loved  ones  in  the  car  as 
long  as  you  dare  before  leaping  for  life. 
The  last  car  sweeps  by.  The  red  and  green 
lights  begin  to  grow  smaller  with  business- 

15 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

like  promptness.  There  is  a  parting  clatter 
as  the  train  hits  the  last  switch  frog  two 
blocks  away.  Then  it's  over.  The  noise, 
bustle,  confusion,  and  joyful  excitement 
follow  the  flying  cinders  out  of  town,  and 
silence  resumes  its  reign.  I've  never  heard 
anything  so  still  as  Homeburg  after  the 
4:11  has  pulled  out. 

But  we're  too  busy  to  notice  it  as  we 
string  across  the  square  to  the  post-office. 
We  have  the  day's  cargo  to  digest.  We 
have  to  wait  for  the  evening  mail  to  be 
distributed,  read  the  evening  newspapers, 
shake  hands  with  all  the  returned  Home- 
burgers,  size  up  the  brand  new  Home- 
burgers  and  investigate  the  strangers.  And 
it  keeps  us  busy  until  supper  time. 

I've  lived  in  Homeburg  thirty-five  years 
and  more,  and  the  4:11  train  has  been 
tangled  up  in  my  biography  all  the  way. 
I  remember  the  first  time  I  ever  rode  on  it. 
The  cars  were  funny-looking  coops  then, 
and  the  engine  had  a  sixty-gallon   smoke- 

16 


THE   4:11    TRAIN 


stack.  I  was  four,  and  I  yelled  with  fear 
when  the  train  came  in  and  kept  it  up  for 
the  first  twenty  miles  after  they  lugged  me 
on  board.  The  conductor  chucked  me 
under  the  chin  and  gave  me  his  punch  to 
play  with.  He  was  a  young  man  then. 
He'd  carried  my  father  and  mother  on  their 
wedding  journey,  and  twenty  years  after 
that  first  ride  of  mine  he  carried  me  and 
my  wife  on  our  wedding  journey.  The 
other  day  we  gave  our  oldest  girl  two  dol- 
lars and  sent  her  on  her  first  trip  down  to 
Jonesville,  by  herself.  Old  Ball  was  on  the 
train,  and  he  grinned  at  me  and  promised 
to  take  good  care  of  her.  He's  pretty  gray 
now,  but  I  hope  he  stays  long  enough  to 
start  another  generation  of  our  family  on 
its  travels. 

I  went  to  my  first  circus,  to  Jonesville, 
on  old  Number  Eleven.  And  I  went  down 
there  at  sixteen,  a  member  of  the  Repub- 
lican Club,  with  a  torch,  and  the  proudest 
boy  in  the  State.    The  next  year  I  started 

17 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

to  college  with  an  algebra  and  a  tennis 
racket  under  my  arm  (they  wouldn't  jam 
into  the  trunk),  and  a  dozen  friends  came 
down  to  see  me  off.  On  Number  Eleven 
that  day  I  met  four  other  boys  going  to 
the  same  school.  We  are  still  close  chums, 
though  one  is  on  the  coast,  another's  here 
in  New  York,  and  the  third  is  in  the  Phil- 
ippines. 

It  was  the  next  year  that  I  noticed  a 
girl  as  she  stepped  off  of  Number  Eleven 
and  was  met  by  one  of  the  Homeburg  girls. 
I  didn't  know  who  she  was,  but  it  seemed 
to  me  then  as  if  she  must  have  come  from 
heaven  by  air-line,  and  I  felt  so  friendly 
toward  the  girl  who  met  her  that  I  had  to 
go  down  to  her  house  to  call  that  very 
night.  The  visitor  had  come  to  stay  — 
her  father  was  starting  a  new  store  in 
Homeburg.  I'll  tell  you,  when  a  snorty 
old  train,  which  assays  two  pecks  of  cinders 
per  car,  hauls  the  most  wonderful  girl  on 
earth  into  your  town  and  dumps  her  into 

18 


seemed  to  me  then  as  if  she  must  have  come  from  heaven 

by  air-line.     Page   18. 


THE  4:11    TRAIN 


your  arms  —  so  to  speak,  and  bunching  up 
events  a  little  —  you're  bound  to  love  that 
train. 

I  could  write  the  history  of  Homeburg 
from  the  4:11  too.  In  fact,  the  train  has 
hauled  most  of  Homeburg  into  the  town. 
Year  after  year  we  watch  strangers  get  off 
the  train  and  turn  around  three  times,  in 
the  way  a  stranger  does  when  he  tries  to 
orient  himself  and  locate  the  nearest  hotel. 
We  get  acquainted  with  those  strangers, 
and  in  the  next  week  we  discover  their 
business  and  antecedents  and  politics  and 
preferences  in  jokes,  and  whether  they  pull 
for  the  Chicago  Cubs  or  the  White  Sox. 
In  two  weeks  they  are  old-time  citizens 
and  go  down  with  us  to  welcome  the  new- 
comers. Henry  Broar  came  to  us  on  the 
4:11.  I  remember  he  wore  a  loppy  hat  and 
needed  a  shave  that  day,  and  we  didn't 
assess  him  very  highly.  But  he  had  a 
whacking  law  practice  inside  of  a  year,  ran 
for  county  judge  two  years  later,  and  now 

19 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

we  swell  up  to  the  danger  point  when 
people  mention  Congressman  Broar,  and 
let  it  slip  modestly  that  we  are  intimate 
enough  with  Hank  to  trade  shirts  with 
him. 

I  remember  well  the  day  two  imposing 
strangers  got  off  of  Number  Eleven,  and 
made  the  town  nearly  explode  with  curi- 
osity by  walking  out  to  the  Dover  farm  at 
the  edge  of  town  and  pacing  it  off  this  way 
and  that.  Took  us  a  month  to  learn  their 
business.  That  was  the  time  we  got  the 
Scraper  Works.  When  Allison  B.  Unk 
arrived,  he  made  a  tremendous  impression 
by  wearing  a  plug  hat  still  in  its  first  youth, 
and  rolling  ponderously  around  town  in  a 
Prince  Albert.  We've  despised  Prince  Al- 
berts ever  since  because  the  town  fell  for 
that  one  and  deposited  liberally  in  Unk's 
new  bank,  which  closed  up  a  year  later. 
And  then  there  was  the  time  when  the 
trainmen  put  off  a  scared  and  sick  cripple, 
who  lay  in  the  depot  waiting-room  with  a 

20 


THE  4:11    TRAIN 


ring  of  sympathetic  incompetents  around 
him  until  Doc  Simms  could  help  him. 
He  touched  our  hearts,  and  we  shelled 
out  enough  to  send  him  on  a  hundred 
miles  to  his  people.  He  came  back  ten 
years  later  and  kept  Homeburg  balanced 
magnificently  in  the  air  for  a  week  by 
showing  us  how  much  fun  it  is  to  chum 
with  a  millionaire.  Even  sick  cripples  are 
likely  to  guess  the  market  right  in  this 
country,  you  know,  and  he  never  forgot  us. 
As  they  come  in  on  Number  Eleven,  so 
they  go.  The  young  men  come  to  Home- 
burg full  of  hope,  and  their  sons  go  on  else- 
where loaded  with  the  same.  Mothers 
weep  on  the  station  platform  many  times  a 
year  while  their  Willies  and  Johns  and 
Petes  hike  gaily  off  to  chase  their  fortunes. 
And  many  times  a  year  the  old  boys  come 
back  from  Chicago.  Some  of  them  are  rich 
and  proud,  and  some  of  them  are  rich  and 
friendly,  and  some  of  them  are  just  friendly. 
But  they  all  get  off  of  Number  Eleven  under 

21 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

our  keen,  discriminating  glare,  and  they  all 
get  the  same  greeting  while  we  size  them 
up  and  wonder  if  their  nobby  thirty-five 
dollar  suits  are  their  sole  stocks-in-trade, 
and  just  how  much  a  "  lucrative  position  ' 
means  in  Chicago. 

When  the  big  strike  was  on,  twenty-five 
years  ago,  Number  Eleven  didn't  run  for 
two  days.  We  might  as  well  have  been 
marooned  on  St.  Helena.  It  was  awful. 
When  a  hand-car  came  sweeping  into  town 
the  third  day  with  a  big  sail  on,  we  hailed 
it  like  starving  sailors.  It  was  Number 
Eleven  which  took  on  a  flat-car  loaded  with 
Paynesville's  fire  department  twenty  years 
ago  and  saved  our  business  section.  When 
President  Ba«iks,  of  the  Great  F.  C.  &  L. 
Railroad,  rolled  into  Homeburg  in  his 
private  car,  to  become  "  Pudge  '  Banks 
again  for  a  day  or  two  and  revisit  the  scenes 
of  his  boyhood,  he  came  on  Number  Eleven 
of  course.  The  train  hung  around  while 
the  band   played   two   selections   and    the 

22 


THE  4:11    TRAIN 


mayor  gave  an  address  of  welcome.    That 
was  her  longest  visit  in  Homeburg. 

The  old  train  even  bursts  into  local 
politics  and  social  affairs  now  and  then. 
It  managed  to  jump  the  track  in  the  cam- 
paign of  '96,  leaving  four  distinguished 
Democratic  speakers,  fizzing  with  oratory, 
in  the  cornfields,  and  ruining  the  only  rally 
the  Dems  attempted  to  pull  off.  And  it 
took  DeLancey  Payley  down  after  all  the 
rest  of  the  town  had  failed,  in  a  manner 
which  kept  us  tearful  with  delight  for  a 
week.  DeLancey  was  sequestered  in  an 
Eastern  college  by  his  loving  parents,  and 
when  he  was  graduated  he  came  home  and 
started  an  exclusive  circle  composed  mostly 
of  himself.  He  was  unapproachably 
haughty,  until  one  day  he  accompanied  a 
proud  beauty,  who  was  visiting  the  Singers 
(our  other  hothouse  family)  to  Number 
Eleven,  and  lingered  too  long  after  the 
train   started.     DeLancey  got  off,  but   in 

doing  so  he  performed  a  variety  of  diffi- 

23 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

cult  and  instructive  feats  of  balancing  on 
his  ear  which  were  viewed  by  a  large  au- 
dience with  terrific  enthusiasm.  When  De- 
Lancey  was  haughty  after  that,  we  always 
praised  this  feat,  and  you'd  be  surprised 
to  see  how  soon  he  got  his  nose  down  out 
of  the  zenith. 

Every  day  old  Number  Eleven  brings  in 
its  mail-bag  full  of  hopes  and  triumphs,  of 
good  news,  bad  news,  and  tragedy.  Every 
day  it  brings  the  new  ideas  from  the  world 
outside  and  the  latest  wrinkles  in  hanging 
on  to  this  whirling  old  sphere  in  a  pleasant 
and  successful  manner.  We  get  our  styles 
from  the  Chicago  men  who  step  off  of  its 
platforms  and  tarry  with  us.  We  send  our 
brides  off  on  it  with  an  entire  change  of 
bill  at  each  performance.  We  get  our 
peeps  into  wonderland  and  romance  and 
comedy  from  the  theatrical  troupes  which 
straggle  out  of  its  cars  and  rush  to  the 
baggage  car  to  make  sure  that  no  varlet 
has    attached   their   trunks    since   the   last 

24 


THE   4:11   TRAIN 


stop.  It  is  the  magic  carpet  which  carries 
our  youth  forth  into  the  great  world  to 
wonder  and  learn  and  prevail.  And  now 
and  then  it  is  the  kindly  beast  of  burden 
who  brings  back  some  old  playmate,  done 
with  weariness  and  striving,  and  coming 
home  to  rest  in  our  cemetery  beyond  the 
south  hill. 

No,  Jim,  your  thousand  trains  a  day, 
with  their  parlor  cars,  bathrooms,  barber 
shops  and  libraries,  are  all  right,  but  they're 
just  trains.  Number  Eleven  is  a  whole  lot 
more  than  a  train.  It  is  the  world  come 
to  visit  us  once  a  day  —  a  moving  picture 
of  life  which  we  enjoyed  long  before  Edison 
took  out  his  patent.  Do  you  wonder  that 
it  makes  me  sad  to  see  so  many  perfectly 
good  trains  going  to  waste  in  this  roofed- 
over  township  of  yours?  Take  me  out  of 
it,   please. 


25 


II 

THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE  -  FIEND 

The  Joys  of  Fighting  Him  with  a  Volunteer 

Fire  Department 

HELLO!     Here   comes   the  fire  de- 
partment!      Watch     the     people 
swarm!    Uumpp!    Ouch!    Excuse 
me  for  living.    This  is  no  place  for  a  peace- 
able spectator.     I'm  going  to  cast  anchor 
in  this  doorway  until  the  mob  gets  past. 

No,  thank  you.  I'll  not  join  the  Mara- 
thon. But  you  don't  know  how  homesick 
and  happy  it  makes  me  to  see  this  crowd 
run!  I've  been  in  New  York  a  week  now, 
and  honestly  this  is  almost  the  first  really 
human  impulse  I've  seen  a  citizen  give 
way  to.     Until  this  minute  I've  felt  as  if 

26 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 


I  were  a  hundred  thousand  miles  from 
Homeburg,  with  all  train  service  suspended 
for  the  winter.  If  I  could  find  the  man 
who  stepped  on  my  heels  while  chasing  that 
engine,  I'd  thank  him  and  ask  him  what 
volunteer  fire  department  he  used  to  run 
with.     See  'em  scramble. 

Whoop!  Here  comes  the  hook-and-lad- 
der  truck!  This  is  nothing  but  Homeburg 
on  a  big  scale.  I'm  beginning  to  envy  you 
city  chaps  now.  That  makes  the  fourth 
engine  that's  come  past.  You  get  more 
for  your  money  than  we  do.  Look  at 
that  chief  hurdling  curbstones  in  his  little 
red  wagon.  If  Homeburg  ever  gets  big 
enough  to  have  a  chief's  wagon,  I'll  suf- 
focate with  pride. 

I  see  it's  the  same  old  story.  Fire's  all 
out.  It  always  is  by  the  time  you've  run 
nine  blocks.  Watch  the  racers  coming 
back.  Stung,  every  one  of  them  —  gold- 
bricked.  There's  a  fat  fellow  who's  run 
half  a  mile,  I'll  bet.     If  his  tongue  hung 

27 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

out  any  farther,  he'd  trip  up  on  it.  But 
he'll  do  it  again  next  time.  They  all  do. 
Learning  to  stop  running  to  fires  is  as  hard 
as  learning  to  stop  buying  mining-stock 
in  the  West.  And  it's  just  as  big  a  swindle 
too.  The  returns  from  running  to  fires  are 
marvelously  small.  They  tell  me  that  a 
hundred  million  dollars  a  year  goes  up  in 
flames  in  this  country.  I  don't  believe  it. 
If  it  does,  I  want  to  know  who  gets  to  see 
all  the  fun.    I  don't. 

I've  run  to  fires  all  my  life,  until  lately, 
and  I've  drawn  about  three  hundred  and 
seventy-five  blanks.  Once  I  almost  saw 
a  big  grain-elevator  burn  in  a  Western 
town.  That  is,  I  would  have  seen  it,  if 
I  had  looked  out  of  my  hotel  window. 
But  I'd  run  two  miles  to  see  a  burning 
haystack  in  the  afternoon,  and  I  was  so 
dead  tired  that  I  slept  right  through  the 
performance  that  night.  And  once  I  did 
see  a  row  of  stores  burn,  back  in  Home- 
burg  —  at  the  distance  of  a  mile.     I  was 

28 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 

in  school,  and  the  teacher  wouldn't  dis- 
miss us.  By  stretching  my  neck  several 
feet  I  could  just  see  the  flames  leaping 
over  the  trees,  but  that  was  all.  Some  of 
the  bad  boys  sneaked  out  of  the  door,  but 
I  was  a  good  boy,  and  waited  one  thousand 
years  until  school  was  out  and  the  fire 
was  ditto.  I've  never  felt  quite  the  same 
since  toward  either  goodness  or  educa- 
tion. 

Some  men  run  faithfully  to  fires  year 
after  year  and  view  a  fine  collection  of 
burning  beefsteaks  and  feverish  chimneys 
and  volcanic  wood-sheds,  while  others  stroll 
out  after  dinner  in  a  strange  city  and  spend 
a  pleasant  evening  watching  a  burning 
oil-refinery  make  a  Vesuvius  look  pale  and 
sickly  in  comparison.  Luck  is  distributed 
in  a  dastardly  way,  and  as  for  myself  I've 
quit  trying.  I  don't  run  to  fires  at  all  any 
more.  The  big  cities  have  fooled  me  long 
enough  by  sending  out  forty  pieces  of  ap- 
paratus   to   smother    a    defective   flue.      I 

29 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

stay  behind  and  watch  the  crowd.  It's 
more  amusing  and  not  half  so  much  work. 

Of  course  in  Homeburg  it's  different. 
You  city  people  don't  realize  what  a 
blessing  the  fire-fiend  is  to  a  small  town. 
Fires  mean  a  whole  lot  to  us.  They  keep 
us  from  petrifying  altogether  during  the 
dull  seasons.  And  they  don't  have  to  be 
real  fires,  either.  Any  old  alarm  will  do. 
Our  fire-bell  sounds  just  as  terrible  for 
a  little  brush  fire  as  it  would  for  a 
flaming  powder-mill.  It's  an  adventure 
merely  to  hear  the  thing.  Take  a  winter 
night  in  the  dull  season  after  Christmas, 
for  instance.  You  have  begun  to  go  to 
sleep  right  after  supper.  You've  finished 
the  job  at  nine  o'clock,  and  by  two  a.  m. 
you're  sailing  placidly  southwest  of  Aus- 
tralia in  a  seagoing  automobile. 

Suddenly  the  pirate-ship  in  the  rear, 
which  you  hadn't  noticed  before,  slips  up 
and  begins  potting  away  at  you  with  a  dull 
metallic  boom.     The  auto  slips  its  clutch, 

30 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 

and  the  engine  begins  to  clang  and  clatter, 
and  somebody  off  behind  a  red-hot  moun- 
tain in  the  distance  begins  ringing  an 
enormous  bell  just  as  you  slide  downward 
into  a  crater  of  flame  —  and  then  you 
wake  up  entirely,  and  the  fire-bell  is  going 
"  clang-clang-clang-clang-clang,"  while  be- 
low you  hear  the  ringing  crunch  of  your 
neighbor's  feet  on  the  cold  snow,  and  out- 
side the  north  window  there  is  a  red  glare 
which  may  be  either  the  end  of  the  world 
or  another  exploded  lamp  in  'Bige  Brin- 
ton's  chicken-incubator;  you  won't  know 
which  until  you  have  stabbed  both  feet 
into  one  pants-leg,  crawled  all  over  the 
cold  floor  for  a  missing  sock,  and  run 
half  a  mile,  double-reefing  your  nightshirt 
to  keep  it  from  trailing  out  from  under 
your  overcoat.  That's  what  a  fire-alarm 
means  in  Homeburg. 

It's  just  as  interesting  in  the  daytime 
too.  Imagine  a  summer  afternoon  in 
Homeburg  about  three  o'clock.    It's  hotter 

3i 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

than  a  simoon  in  the  Sahara,  and  the 
aggregate  business  being  done  along  Front 
Street  is  nineteen  cents  an  hour.  The 
nearest  approach  to  life  on  the  street  is 
Sam  McAtaw  sitting  in  a  shady  spot  on 
the  edge  of  the  sidewalk  and  leaning  against 
a  telephone-pole,  sound  asleep.  You're 
sitting  in  your  office  chair,  with  your  feet 
on  the  desk,  dozing,  when  suddenly  you 
hear  footsteps  outside.  Whoever  is  making 
them  is  turning  them  out  with  great  ra- 
pidity, and  that  in  itself  is  novel  enough  to 
be  interesting.  The  footsteps  go  by,  and 
you  look  at  their  maker.  It  is  Gibb  Ogle 
surging  up  the  walk  and  yanking  his  pon- 
derous feet  this  way  and  that  with  tre- 
mendous energy.  Nothing  but  a  fire  or  a 
loose  lion  can  make  Gibb  run,  and  you 
don't  take  any  stock  in  the  lion  theory; 
so  you  tumble  out  after  him. 

By  this  time  Sim  Bone  is  on  the  street, 
and  Harvey  McMuggins  is  coming  up  be- 
hind, while  half  a  dozen  heads  have  sud- 

32 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 

denly  sprouted  from  as  many  doorways. 
Your  heart  beats  with  suspense  when  Gibb 
comes  to  the  town-hall  corner.  Hurrah! 
He's  steering  for  the  fire-house.  You're 
overhauling  him  rapidly,  and  by  a  big 
sprint  you  beat  out  Clatt  Sanderson,  and 
grab  one  handle  of  the  fire-bell  ropes. 
Gibb  grabs  the  other,  and  then  you  let 
her  have  it  for  all  there  is  in  you. 

Did  I  say  anything  about  Homeburg 
being  asleep?  Forget  it.  Before  you've 
hit  the  bell  a  dozen  taps  you  can't  hear 
it  for  the  tramp  of  feet.  Every  store  in 
town  is  belching  forth  proprietors  and 
clerks.  They  are  coming  bareheaded  and 
coatless;  some  of  them  are  collarless.  Chief 
Dobbs,  who  shoes  horses  in  his  less  glorious 
moments  and  keeps  his  helmet  hanging 
on  the  forge-cover,  dashes  into  the  engine- 
room,  grabs  his  trumpet,  and  begins  firing 
orders,  not  singly,  but  in  broadsides. 
There's  nobody  there  to  order  yet,  but  he's 
just  getting  his  hand  in,  and  ten  seconds 

33 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

later,  when  the  first  member  of  the  com- 
pany arrives,  he  is  saluted  with  nineteen 
stentorian  commands  in  one  blast.  Half  a 
minute  later  the  engine-house  is  clogged 
with  fire-fighters,  and  the  air  is  a  maelstrom 
of  orders,  counter  orders,  suggestions,  ob- 
jections, and  hoarse  yells.  Then  a  roar  of 
wheels  sounds  outside,  and  you  drop  the 
bell-rope  handle  and  go  out  to  see  the 
finest  sight  of  all. 

I  suppose  those  old  Romans  thought  the 
chariot-races  were  pretty  nifty,  but  if  an 
old  Roman  should  reassemble  himself  and 
watch  the  dray-race  to  a  Homeburg  fire, 
he'd  wonder  how  he  ever  managed  to 
sit  through  a  silly  little  dash  around  an 
arena.  From  the  south  comes  a  cloud  of 
dust  and  a  terrific  racket.  At  an  equal 
distance  from  the  east  comes  another  cloud 
of  dust  and  an  even  more  terrible  uproar, 
Clay  Billings's  dray  having  more  loose 
spokes  than  Bill  Dorgan's.  The  clouds 
approach  with  tremendous  speed.     Bill  is 

34 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 

a  little  ahead.  He  is  lashing  his  horses 
with  the  ends  of  the  reins,  while  from  the 
bounding  dray  small  articles  of  no  value, 
such  as  butter-firkins  and  cases  of  eggs,  are 
emerging  and  following  on  the  road  behind. 

But  Clay  isn't  beaten  —  not  by  a  thou- 
sand miles.  He's  going  to  make  it  a  dead 
heat  or  better  —  no,  Bill  hit  the  crossing 
first.  By  George!  That  Clay  boy  is  a 
wonder.  He  deliberately  pulled  in  and 
shot  across  behind  Bill,  cutting  off  a  good 
fifty  feet.  His  team  stops,  sliding  on  their 
haunches,  and  ten  seconds  later  is  being 
hitched  to  the  hose-cart,  while  Clay  is 
on  the  seat  clanging  the  foot-bell  trium- 
phantly. It's  the  fiftieth  race,  or  there- 
abouts, between  the  two,  and  the  score  is 
about  even.  The  winner  gets  two  dollars 
for  the  use  of  his  team.  I've  seen  horse- 
races for  a  thousand-dollar  purse  which 
weren't  half  as  exciting. 

In  the  meanwhile  more  messengers  have 
arrived  from  the  fire.     It  is  in  the  Mahlon 

35 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

Brown  barn,  and  late  advices  indicate  ter- 
rible progress.  As  fast  as  forty-nine  rival 
fingers  can  do  it,  the  tugs  are  fastened,  and 
the  cart  is  off  down  the  street  with  a  long 
trail  of  citizens    after  it. 

Bill's  team,  badly  blown,  is  hitched  to 
the  hook-and-ladder  truck,  and  willing 
hands  push  it  out  through  the  door.  There 
is  always  more  or  less  of  a  feud  between 
the  hook-and-ladder  boys  and  the  hose-cart 
boys,  because  the  former  get  the  second 
team  and  rarely  arrive  at  the  fire  in  time 
to  hoist  the  beautiful  blue  ladders  before 
the  hose-cart  gang  puts  the  conflagration 
out.  Indeed,  the  feeling  has  gotten  so 
strong  at  times  that  the  hook-and-ladder 
gang  has  threatened  to  double  the  prize- 
money  by  private  subscription  and  get 
their  rig  out  first,  but  patriotism  has  thus 
far  prevented  this. 

You  have  rung  the  bell  until  you  are 
tired,  by  this  time,  and,  besides,  the  human 
flood    has    rushed    on,    leaving   no   one   to 

36 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 

whom  you  can  explain  just  how  you  thought 
you  smelled  fire  and  beat  the  world  to  the 
engine-house.  So  you  set  out  for  the  fire 
yourself  and  jog  over  the  half-mile  in  pretty 
fair  time,  considering  the  heat.  It  is  an 
impressive  sight  —  not  the  fire  itself,  but 
the  event.  Two  thousand,  two  hundred 
and  nine  people  are  there  —  that  being  the 
population  of  Homeburg  minus  the  sick 
and  wandering. 

In  the  midst  of  the  seething  mass  are  the 
hose-cart  and  the  ladder-truck.  Around 
them  dozens  of  red  helmets  are  bobbing, 
while  the  quivering  air  is  cut  and  slashed 
and  mangled  with  a  ,very  hurricane  of  or- 
ders: "Bring  up  that  hose  —  "  "Whoa, 
keep  that  horse  still  —  "  "  Bring  her  round 
this  way  —  "  "  Bring  her  round  this  way  —  " 
"  Hey,  you  chumps,  the  fire's  this  side  —  ' 
"  Back  up  that  wagon  —  "  "  Come  ahead 
with  the  wagon  —  "  "  Get  out  of  here  till 
we  get  a  ladder  up  —  "  "  Axes  here  —  ' 
"  Turn  on  that  water  — "    "  Turn  on  that 

37 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 


water  —  "  "  Turn  on  that  water  1 1  —  ' 
"  Jones,  go  down  and  tell  that  wooden  In- 
dian to  turn  on  that  water."  "  Hold  that 
water,  you  —  "  "  Hold  that  water!  "  "  Turn 
her  on,  I  say."  "  Turn  her  —  "  "  Wow 
—  turn  that  nozzle  the  other  way  — ' 

And  then  the  water  comes  with  a  mighty 
rush,  yanking  the  nozzlemen  this  way  and 
that  and  sweeping  firemen  and  common 
citizens  aside  as  if  they  were  mere  straws. 

As  a  rule,  this  is  the  climax,  and  the  end 
comes  rapidly.  By  this  time  Brown,  who 
had  put  the  fire  out  with  a  few  pails  of 
water  before  the  alarm  sounded,  has  per- 
suaded the  department  to  call  off  its  hose, 
the  barn  being  full  of  valuable  hay.  So 
there  isn't  anything  to  do.  The  water  is 
turned  off.  Gibb  Ogle  explains  to  the 
one  hundred  and  eleventh  knot  of  people 
how  he  was  going  past  the  place  when  he 
saw  the  tongue  of  flame,  and  every  one 
disperses  after  a  pleasant  social  time. 

Everybody  is  tolerably  well  satisfied  ex- 

38 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 

cept  the  hook-and-ladder  gang,  which,  as 
usual,  is  skunked  again  —  never  got  a 
ladder  out.  A  couple  of  the  axmen  had  a 
little  fun  with  a  rear  window,  but  otherwise 
the  affair  is  a  flat  failure.  They  go  back 
sullenly,  but  are  comforted  when  the  roll 
is  called,  when  each  member  who  was 
present  draws  a  dollar  from  the  city  treas- 
ury. As  usual,  Pete  Sundbloom  is  late, 
and  tries  to  edge  in  to  roll-call,  though  he 
was  a  mile  away  from  peril,  but  he  can't 
make  it  stick  and  gets  the  hoarse  hoot  when 
his  little  game  is  discovered. 

I  want  to  ask  you  —  isn't  that  a  pleasant 
interruption  on  a  dead  day?  It  makes  life 
worth  living,  and  I  really  wonder  that 
there  isn't  more  incendiarism  in  small  towns 
throughout  the  United  States. 

Of  course  all  the  alarms  aren't  fizzles. 
Sometimes  we  have  a  real  fire,  and  then 
the  scene  defies  description.  When  a  fair- 
sized  house  burns  down,  Chief  Dobbs  is  so 
hoarse  that  he  can't  talk  for  a  week,  and 

39 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

when  the  row  of  wooden  stores  on  the  south 
side  went  up  in  flames  a  few  years  ago,  the 
old  chief,  Patrick  McQuinn,  burst  a  blood- 
vessel and  had  to  retire,  the  doctor  hav- 
ing warned  him  that  he  must  never  use  a 
speaking-trumpet  again. 

I  was  away  at  the  time,  but  they  tell  me 
that  was  a  grand  fire  for  the  hook-and- 
ladder  boys.  They  were  right  in  the  middle 
of  it,  and  every  ladder  in  the  truck  was  out. 
There  was  some  trouble  over  the  fact  that 
the  big  extension  ladder  was  too  tall  for 
the  buildings,  and  when  Art  Simms  had 
climbed  to  the  top,  he  managed  to  fall 
fifteen  feet  to  the  roof  of  the  furniture-store, 
bruising  himself  badly.  But,  on  the  whole, 
great  good  was  done,  and  the  second  story 
workers  were  kings  that  day.  When  the 
hotel  caught,  and  the  hook-and-ladder  gang 
got  into  it,  the  way  the  upper  windows 
belched  mattresses,  mirrors,  toilet-sets,  pic- 
tures and  beds  was  unbelievable.  Almost 
everything  in  the  building  was  saved,  and 

40 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 

some  of  it  was  successfully  repaired  after- 
ward. 

The  axmen  had  their  innings  that  day, 
too.  It  was  a  great  sight  to  see  Andy 
Lowes  leap  nimbly  up  the  ladder  and  poke 
in  window  after  window  with  his  spiked  ax, 
stepping  backward  now  and  then  into 
nozzleman  Jones's  face  in  order  to  view 
the  effect.  The  axmen  got  glory  enough 
to  last  for  years,  and  it  was  an  axman  who 
put  out  the  last  scrap  of  fire.  Frank  Sun- 
dell  was  the  hero.  He  was  sitting  on  the 
ridge-pole  of  Emerson's  restaurant  when 
he  noticed  a  few  blazing  spots  on  the 
shingle  roof  beneath  him.  He  might  have 
called  the  hose  department;  but,  as  I  have 
said,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  rivalry  between 
the  two,  and,  besides,  Sundell  had  had  a 
slow  time  that  day,  Lowes  doing  most  of 
the  display  work.  So  Frank  reached  cau- 
tiously down  with  his  trusty  ax,  cut  out  a 
blazing  section  of  shingles,  and  tossed  it  to 
the  ground.     The  crowd  cheered,  and  he 

4i 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

was  so  encouraged  that  he  cut  out  the  rest 
of  the  hot  spots  and  put  out  the  fire  single- 
handed.  Sundell  is  one  of  our  very  best 
firemen  and  stands  in  line  for  a  nozzleman's 
position  some  day. 

Of  course  a  small-town  fire  department 
doesn't  get  as  much  practice  in  twisting 
the  fire-fiend's  tail  as  a  city  fire  company; 
but  our  boys  have  a  mighty  good  record, 
and  we're  proud  of  them.  Since  we've  had 
water-works,  and  the  department  hasn't 
had  to  depend  on  some  cistern  which  al- 
ways went  dry  just  at  a  critical  moment, 
there  hasn't  been  a  conflagration  in  Home- 
burg  big  enough  to  get  into  the  city  papers. 
The  boys  may  be  a  little  overzealous  now 
and  then,  but  they  are  always  on  the  job 
ten  minutes  after  the  first  tap  of  the  bell, 
and  the  way  they  go  after  a  red  tongue  of 
flame  on  a  kitchen  roof  reminds  me  of  a 
terrier  shaking  a  rat.  They  are  our  real 
heroes,  —  the  fire-laddies,  —  for  outside  of 
Frank  Ericson  and  Shorty  McGrew,  who 

42 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 

work  on  the  switching-crew,  and  come 
sailing  down  through  town  hanging  grace- 
fully from  the  end  of  a  box-car  ladder  by 
one  foot  and  hand,  no  one  else  has  any 
chance  to  face  danger  in  Homeburg. 

Of  course  our  firemen  don't  face  danger 
regularly,  between  meals,  like  your  big  paid 
departments  here,  and  about  the  most  the 
ordinary  business  man  gets  in  the  danger- 
line  is  the  imminent  peril  of  getting  a  new 
twenty-five-dollar  suit  in  line  with  the 
chemical  hose;  but  we  don't  forget  in 
Homeburg  how  old  Mrs.  Agnew's  house 
burned  twenty  years  ago  this  spring  and 
the  department  was  late,  owing  to  the 
magnificent  depth  of  Exchange  Street,  the 
roads  having  broken  up,  and  how,  when 
it  got  there,  the  house  was  a  mass  of  flames, 
with  the  poor  old  lady,  who  had  been  bed- 
ridden for  years,  shrieking  inside,  and  a 
hundred  neighbors  shrieking  on  the  out- 
side; and  how  Pat  McQuinn  and  Henry 
Aultmeyer  dove  in  through  a  window,  with 

43 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

wet  coats  around  their  heads  and  the 
chemical-hose  playing  on  their  backs;  and 
how  they  tugged  and  hauled  at  Mrs.  Ag- 
new,  who  weighed  two  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds,  and  couldn't  get  a  grip  on  her, 
and  finally  upended  the  burning  bed  and 
dumped  her  out  of  the  window,  breaking 
her  hip,  and  then  dumped  themselves  out 
and  rolled  in  the  wet  grass  until  their  hair 
and  mustaches  and  clothes  quit  blazing  — 
after  which  they  retired  into  cotton-wool 
for  a  month. 

Maybe  your  men  would  have  done  it 
more  scientifically  and  entirely  saved  poor 
Mrs.  Agnew,  who  died  the  next  month  of 
the  broken  hip,  but  they  couldn't  have 
stuck  to  the  job  any  more  heroically;  and 
when  Homeburg  citizens  talk  about  "  brave 
fire-laddies  "  and  "  homely  heroes  5  at 
the  annual  benefit  supper  of  the  Volunteer 
Company  No.  I,  they  mean  Pat  and 
Henry,  and  are  perfectly  willing  to  argue 
the  question  with  any  one. 

44 


THE    FRIENDLY    FIRE -FIEND 

So  we  worship  our  company  to  our 
heart's  content,  and  when  it  comes  pacing 
slowly  down  the  street  at  the  head  of 
every  parade,  with  the  members  looking 
handsomer  than  chorus  girls  in  their  dark- 
blue  flannel  suits,  red  belts,  and  neat  blue 
caps,  we  look  at  them  full  of  pride  and 
confidence.  Our  little  boys  dream  of  the 
time  when  they  will  grow  up  and  join  the 
company  and  wear  seven-pound  red  hel- 
mets at  fires,  and  come  home  tired  and 
muddy  in  the  gray  dawn  after  a  fire  and 
demand  hot  coffee  from  their  admiring 
women-folks;  and  as  for  the  Homeburg 
girls  —  well,  the  greatest  social  function  of 
our  town,  or  of  the  county  for  that  matter, 
is  the  annual  ball  of  the  Homeburg  fire 
department. 

And  let  me  tell  you,  when  the  nine-piece 
orchestra  —  all  home  talent  —  strikes  up 
the  grand  march  and  Chief  Dobbs,  with 
his  wide-gauge  mustache  and  vacuum- 
cleaned  uniform,  leads  the  company  around 

45 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

the  hall,  every  hero  with  the  girl  or  wife 
of  his  heart  on  his  arm  and  a  full  hundred 
couples  of  the  mere  laymen  crowding  in 
behind,  in  a  long  and  many-looped  line,  the 
Astor  ball  would  have  to  do  business  with 
a  brass  band  and  a  display  of  fireworks  to 
attract  any  more  enthusiasm. 

That's  what  the  fire  department  means 
to  us  in  Homeburg.  We  don't  suffer  half 
so  much  from  fires  as  we  would  from  the 
lack  of  them;  and  when  this  new  concrete 
construction  makes  the  world  fire-proof, 
and  the  Homeburg  fire  department  rusts 
away  and  disappears,  we  will  mourn  it 
even  more  sincerely  than  we  did  the  opera 
house  with  a  real  gallery,  which  got  over- 
heated one  night  twenty-five  years  ago 
and  burned,  compelling  us  to  get  along 
with  a  mere  hall  with  a  flat  floor  ever  after- 
ward. 


46 


Ill 


HOMEBURG'S     TWO     FOUR  -  HUNDREDTHS 


The  Struggles  of  our  Best  Families  to  Im- 
press Us 

HOLD  on,  Jim.  Don't  hurry  so. 
Remember  I  don't  have  a  chance 
to  walk  up  Fifth  Avenue  every 
day.  Give  me  a  chance  to  astonish  myself. 
Here  are  ten  thousand  women  going  by  in 
clothes  that  would  make  a  lily  turn  red 
and  burn  up  with  shame,  and  an  equal 
number  of  proud  gents  with  curlycue  collars 
on  their  overcoats,  and  I  want  to  do  the 
sight  justice. 

You  see  all  this  parade  every  day,  but  I 
don't,  and  I  want  to  drink  it  all  in.  See 
that  feminine  explosion  in  salmon  plush! 

47 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

That  would  paralyze  business  back  home. 
Watch  that  hat  crossing  the  street  —  it 
ought  to  be  arrested  for  being  without 
visible  means  of  support —  Oh,  I  see! 
There's  a  girl  under  it  with  one  of  those 
rifle-barrel  skirts.  Gee!  Ssh,  Jim!  Did 
you  see  the  lady  who  just  passed?  Let's 
beg  her  pardon  for  intruding  on  this  earth. 
Say,  you  could  peel  enough  haughtiness  off 
of  her  to  supply  eight  duchesses  and  still 
have  enough  for  the  lady  cashier  at  my 
hotel.  I'll  bet  she  is  one  of  your  Four 
Hundred.  For  goodness'  sake,  Jim,  if  we 
pass  any  of  your  social  lighthouses,  point 
them  out  to  me.  I'm  here  to  see  the  sights. 
I  know  the  rest  of  the  country  throws 
it  up  to  New  York  a  lot  because  of  its 
Four  Hundred,  and  that  the  ordinary  small- 
town man  gets  so  scornful  when  he  talks 
of  the  idle  and  diamond-crusted  rich,  with 
their  poodle-dog  pastimes,  that  he  lives  in 
constant  danger  of  stabbing  his  eyes  with 
his   nose.      But   I'm    not   that   way;     I'm 

48 


TWO   FOUR -HUNDREDTHS 

interested.  Nothing  fascinates  me  so  much 
as  the  stories  in  your  papers  about  Mrs. 
Clymorr  Busst's  clever  pearl  earrings,  made 
to  resemble  door  knobs;  and  about  Mrs. 
Spenser  Coyne's  determination  to  have 
Columbia  University  removed  because  it 
interferes  with  the  view  from  her  garage; 
and  about  little  Mrs.  Justin  Wright's 
charming  innocence  in  buying  a  whole 
steamship  whenever  she  goes  over  to  Eu- 
rope. I'd  go  a  long  way  to  see  your  Four 
Hundred  perform;  and  moreover,  after  I 
had  accumulated  a  precarious  balance  on 
an  iron  spike  fence  in  order  to  rest  one  eye 
on  a  genuine  duke  while  he  fought  his  way 
out  of  a  church  with  one  of  your  leading 
local  beauties,  who  had  just  been  affixed 
to  him  for  life,  I  would  not  squint  pity- 
ingly on  the  heaving  mass  of  spectators 
and  hiss: 

"  We  don't  do  this  in  Homeburg." 
Because  we  would  do  it  fast  enough  if 
we  had  a  chance. 

49 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

We  don't  have  anything  like  your  Smart 
Set,  of  course,  but  I  desire  to  say  with 
pride  that  while  there  aren't  enough  tiaras 
in  Homeburg  to  fill  a  pill  box,  and  the  only 
limousine  we  possess  is  the  closed  carriage 
which  is  used  for  the  family  of  the  de- 
ceased at  funerals,  we  have  our  exclusive 
and  magnificent  class  just  as  New  York 
has.  We  haven't  a  Four  Hundred  in 
Homeburg,  but  we  have  a  Two  Four- 
Hundredths.  If  you  get  as  much  real, 
solid  pleasure  and  amusement  in  New  York 
watching  your  Four  Hundred  as  we  do 
watching  the  Payleys  and  the  Singers,  I 
envy  you.  They're  worth  all  the  trouble 
they  cause. 

For  a  good  many  years,  Mrs.  Wert 
Payley,  wife  of  the  First  National  Bank, 
was  our  Smart  Set,  all  by  herself.  There 
was  never  any  question  of  it.  She  ad- 
mitted it,  and  we  didn't  take  the  trouble  to 
deny  it.  In  a  way,  she  was  regarded  as  a 
public  benefactor.     Nobody  else  cared  to 

50 


TWO   FOUR- HUNDREDTHS 

spend  the  money  necessary  to  be  a  Smart 
Set,  and  since  Mrs.  Payley  was  willing  to 
fight  and  be  bled,  so  to  speak,  to  give  our 
town  tone  and  inject  a  little  excitement 
into  our  prairie  lives  now  and  then,  we 
felt  that  the  least  we  could  do  was  to  re- 
gard her  as  a  social  colossus. 

The  Payleys  were  the  only  people  in 
Homeburg  who  had  lunch  at  noon,  and 
as  early  as  1900  they  ate  it  from  the  bare 
table.  She  was  the  only  woman  in  Home- 
burg who  could  "  look  in  "  on  an  afternoon 
gabble  of  any  kind  for  a  few  minutes  and 
get  away  with  it  without  insulting  the 
hostess.  When  she  shook  hands  with  you, 
you  always  grabbed  in  the  wrong  place, 
no  matter  how  much  thought  you  put  into 
it,  and  while  you  were  readjusting  your 
sights  and  clawing  for  her  fingers  and  per- 
spiring with  mortification,  she  was  getting 
a  start  on  you  which  kept  you  bashfully 
humble  as  long  as  she  was  in  sight.  She 
was    real    goods,    Mrs.    Payley   was  —  not 

Si 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

arrogant,  but  just  naturally  superior. 
People  who  called  at  the  Payleys'  evenings 
were  the  social  lights  of  Homeburg,  and 
whenever  some  lady  wanted  to  discharge  a 
few  fireworks  indicating  her  social  position, 
she  would  form  a  hollow  square  around 
Mrs.  Payley  in  public  and  get  intimate 
with  her  in  full  view  of  everybody.  Mrs. 
Payley  ran  the  town,  and  everybody  was 
comfortable  and  content  about  it  until  the 
Singers  arrived. 

The  Singers  came  from  Cincinnati  to 
cashier  in  the  Farmers'  State  Bank:  Mrs. 
Singer  was  city  bred  and  city  heeled  and 
when  she  met  Mrs.  Wert  Payley  she  didn't 
even  blink.  She  put  out  her  hand  a  little 
nor'-nor'east  of  her  chatelaine  watch,  when 
Mrs.  Payley  put  out  her  hand  some  four 
inches  southwest  by  south,  and  waited 
calmly  for  Mrs.  Payley  to  correct  herself. 
There  was  an  awful  moment  of  suspense, 
and  when  it  became  evident  that  the  only 
way  to  get  Mrs.   Singer's   hand  down  to 

52 


TWO   FOUR- HUNDREDTHS 

the  other  level  would  be  to  excavate  be- 
neath her  and  change  her  foundations, 
Mrs.  Payley  gave  in  and  reached. 

War  was  declared  that  minute,  and  I 
shudder  now  when  I  think  of  the  months 
which  followed. 

Mrs.  Payley,  having  been  on  the  ground 
a  long  time,  had  fortified  it,  of  course,  and 
was  president  of  all  the  clubs.  But  inside 
of  a  month  Mrs.  Singer  flanked  her  posi- 
tion. She  declined  to  join  most  of  the 
clubs  on  the  plea  of  being  a  busy  woman, 
and  organized  a  flower  mission.  Its  object 
was  to  distribute  flowers  to  the  sick  and 
needy,  who  generally  consisted  of  Pat 
Ryan.  Pat  was  nearly  smothered  in  flow- 
ers that  year,  being  good-natured,  and  as 
the  work  of  collecting  said  flowers  involved 
a  great  deal  of  meeting  in  the  Singer  home 
and  dancing  in  the  Singer  attic,  which  was 
floored  with  hard  maple  that  winter,  Mrs. 
Singer  had  the  girls  of  the  town  organized 
into  a  Roman  phalanx  before  spring. 

S3 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

Mrs.  Payley  was  triumphantly  reelected 
to  the  presidency  of  all  her  clubs  that 
winter,  but  Mrs.  Singer  organized  a  public 
library  association  and  pulled  off  a  Ger- 
man. Mrs.  Payley  attended,  and  when  she 
tried  to  patronize  Mrs.  Singer  with  her 
compliments,  that  clever  infighter  beat 
her  to  it  by  explaining  the  theory  of  the 
German  to  her.  That  made  Mrs.  Payley 
so  mad  that  the  next  month  she  invited  the 
state  president  of  the  Federation  of  Wom- 
en's Clubs  to  visit  her,  and  didn't  ask  Mrs. 
Singer  to  the  tea.  The  next  week  Mrs. 
Singer  organized  a  Country  Club.  It  only 
consisted  of  a  two-room  pavilion  in  wThich 
picnics  could  be  held  and  dances  could 
be  pulled  off,  with  long  intermissions  for 
the  extraction  of  slivers  from  the  feet.  But 
it  was  just  as  easy  to  talk  about  while 
you  were  in  town  and  to  refer  to  in  a  hushed 
and  exclusive  manner  as  if  it  cost  a  million, 
and  when  Mrs.  Payley  realized  that  she 
could    never    hope    to    become    exclusive 

54 


TWO   FOUR- HUNDREDTHS 

enough  to  get  into  it,  though  goodness 
knows  she  couldn't  have  been  hired  to 
belong  to  the  foolish  thing,  she  quit  speak- 
ing to  Mrs.  Singer,  the  split  became  a 
chasm,  and  we  began  choosing  up  sides  in 
earnest. 

That  winter  Mrs.  Singer  seceded  from 
the  church  which  Mrs.  Payley  ran,  and 
founded  an  Episcopal  church,  taking  seven 
choir  members  out  of  the  Congregational 
church,  to  say  nothing  of  the  organist.  All 
this  mixed  up  religion  in  Homeburg  that 
winter  until  you  could  scarcely  tell  it  from 
a  ward  caucus. 

By  spring  it  was  dangerous  to  show 
favors  to  either  side,  and  when  the  school 
election  came  around,  it  was  fought  out 
between  the  Payley  and  Singer  factions. 
Sally  Singer  had  been  given  higher  marks 
than  Sarah  Payley,  and  the  upshot  of  it 
all  was  that  when  the  Payley  side  pre- 
vailed at  election  by  nine  votes,  the  super- 
intendent  lost   his   job.     He  was   a   good 

55 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

superintendent  and  the  cause  of  education 
didn't  get  over  the  jolt  for  some  years,  but 
justice,  of  course,  had  to  be  done. 

The  Singers  got  some  satisfaction  out 
of  it  by  electing  the  school  board  treasurer, 
which  took  a  lot  of  money  out  of  the  First 
National  Bank.  That,  of  course,  got  the 
banks  into  the  row.  You  city  folks  may 
have  your  financial  flurries,  but  if  you've 
never  been  around  and  between  and  under 
a  bank  scrap  in  a  small  town,  you  don't 
know  what  trouble  is.  There  were  a  couple 
of  failures  that  needn't  have  happened, 
and  a  lot  of  partisan  financiering,  and  then 
the  town  rose  up  and  sat  down  on  our 
social  leaders  with  a  most  pronounced 
scrunch.  We  can  stand  just  about  so 
much  society  in  Homeburg,  but  when  it 
gets  to  elbowing  into  business,  churches, 
schools  and  funerals,  we  are  more  sensible 
than  you  metropolitans  are.  It  only  takes 
a  half-day  to  pass  the  word  through  a 
small    town,    and    one    fine    morning    the 

56 


TWO   FOUR- HUNDREDTHS 


Payleys  and  Singers  discovered  that  while 
they  were  still  facing  each  other  like  two 
snorty  and  inextinguishable  generals,  their 
armies  had  gone  off  arm  in  arm. 

That  ended  the  feud  and  put  society  in 
Homeburg  back  in  its  proper  place  —  in 
the  front  parlors  in  the  evening  after  the 
dishes  had  been  done  up.  The  Payleys 
and  Singers  still  continued  to  compete,  but 
we  declined  to  fight  and  bleed  for  them 
and  amused  ourselves  instead  by  watching 
them  from  the  sidelines.  Mrs.  Payley 
joined  the  "  When  I  was  in  Europe  "  bri- 
gade, and  the  Singers  got  the  first  automo- 
bile in  town.  It  kept  the  Singers  so  busy 
supporting  and  encouraging  it,  that  the 
Payleys  were  able  to  build  the  first  modern 
house  with  a  sleeping  porch  and  individual 
bathrooms  —  and  about  the  time  the  Sing- 
ers came  back  with  a  two-story  bungalow 
full  of  chopped  wood  furniture,  Mrs.  Payley 
went  abroad  again  and  began  to  say: 
"  The  last  time  I  was  in  Europe."    It  was 

57 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

nip  and  tuck,  year  in  and  year  out,  between 
the  two,  and  we  all  enjoyed  it  a  lot. 

But  it  wasn't  until  the  Payley  and 
Singer  children  came  home  from  college 
and  formed  a  tight  little  circle  with  their 
backs  out,  that  we  began  to  reap  the 
benefits  of  really  haughty  society. 

The  Payley  and  Singer  children  had  ab- 
sorbed all  their  families  had  to  offer,  and 
then  they  went  off  to  school  in  the  East 
and  laid  in  a  complete  stock  of  the  latest 
styles  in  superiority.  They  were  all  fin- 
ished in  the  same  spring  and  shipped  back 
to  Homeburg  —  magnificent  specimens  of 
college  art  with  even  their  names  done 
over  —  and  when  they  realized  that  they 
had  to  live  forever  in  the  old  town,  where 
no  one  spoke  their  language  or  could  even 
understand  their  clothes,  the  family  feud 
was  forgotten  and  the  four  rushed  together 
for  mutual  protection  and  formed  a  real 
Smart  Set. 

It's    just    like    your    bigger    crowd.      It 

58 


TWO   FOUR- HUNDREDTHS 


doesn't  have  anything  to  do  with  us  in 
particular.  And  we  are  just  like  you  are. 
You  open  your  Sunday  papers  and  read 
reams  about  the  plumbing  and  pajamas 
and  pet  dogs  and  love  affairs  of  your  first 
families,  and  I  guess  nothing  that  Sally 
Singer  or  Sarah  Payley  ever  did  got  past 
the  scornful  but  lynx-eyed  Homeburgers. 
When  Sarah  was  getting  letters  on  expen- 
sive stationery  from  Kansas  City,  the 
whole  town  discussed  the  probable  charac- 
ter of  a  man  who  would  put  blue  sealing 
wax  on  his  envelopes,  and  when  Sally 
made  her  pa  put  an  addition  on  the  Singer 
home,  we  knew  what  color  she  was  going 
to  do  her  boudoir  in  three  months  in  ad- 
vance. But  we  are  prouder  than  your 
people.  You  hire  down-trodden  reporters 
to  go  and  abase  themselves  to  get  the  in- 
formation, while  we  wouldn't  lower  our- 
selves enough  to  ask  even  by  proxy.  We 
just  let  the  sewing  women  and  hired  girls 
tell  us. 

59 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

Being  an  exclusive  set  in  a  small  town 
is  a  whole  lot  harder  than  it  is  in  New 
York,  and  I've  always  admired  our  young- 
sters for  the  way  they've  carried  it  off. 
Of  course,  four  people  can't  form  a  club 
or  give  parties  or  support  an  exclusive 
restaurant;  they  can't  even  be  exclusive 
all  by  themselves.  They  have  had  to 
mingle  with  us,  but  they  are  always  care- 
fully insulated.  They  joined  our  Country 
Club,  but  they  did  it  with  their  fingers 
crossed,  so  to  speak.  They  always  come 
out  together  and  protect  each  other  from 
our  rude  advances  as  much  as  possible. 
They  import  college  friends  whenever  they 
can,  and  they  always  have  a  few  bush 
leaguers,  or  utility  players,  to  work  in  on 
such  occasions.  Henry  Snyder  used  to 
say  he  could  tell  when  there  was  need  of 
the  peasantry  at  the  Singer  house  by  the 
way  Sally  Singer  would  suddenly  descend 
from  the  third  cross-road  beyond  Mars  to 
the  street  in  front  of  the  post-office  and 

60 


TWO   FOUR- HUNDREDTHS 

ask  him  with  an  accurately  hospitable 
smile  if  he  couldn't  bring  his  sister  up  to 
the  house  that  evening  to  meet  a  few 
guests.  And  once  a  year  all  four  turn  in 
and  give  a  real  dress  rehearsal  of  up-to-date 
social  science,  to  which  Homeburg  is  liber- 
ally invited  and  at  which  unknown  and 
unsuspected  things  are  served  for  refresh- 
ments and  a  new  and  deadly  variation  of 
bridge  or  dancing  or  punch  or  receiving 
lines  or  conversational  technique  is  put  on 
for  our  inspection  and  bewilderment. 

We  have  a  show  at  our  opera-house  now 
and  then,  and  we  always  go  to  these  affairs 
largely  to  see  our  Smart  Set  perform.  It 
always  comes  —  even  East  Lynne  is  better 
that  West  Homeburg  —  and  I'll  tell  you, 
by  the  time  they  have  come  rustling  in 
about  half  way  through  the  first  act,  H. 
DeLancey  Payley  and  W.  Sam  Singer  in 
clawhammers  with  an  acre  apiece  of  white 
shirt  and  holding  about  four  bushels  of 
pink  fluff  over  their  arms,   and  the  boys 

61 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

have  consulted  anxiously  with  the  usher, 
the  two  girls,  beautiful  visions  of  Arctic 
perfection,  standing  in  well-bred  suspense 
and  holding  their  gowns  in  the  19 15  man- 
ner, and  all  four  have  hurried  down  to  the 
best  seats  and  have  unharnessed  and  stowed 
away  their  upholsterings,  and  DeLancey  has 
folded  up  his  explosive  hat  and  Sam  has 
leaned  back  in  a  lordly  way  and  beckoned 
to  the  usher  for  another  program  —  by  the 
time  all  this  has  transpired,  the  actors  have 
forgotten  their  lines,  and  we  have  gotten 
our  money's  worth  out  of  the  evening's 
entertainment. 

The  hardships  those  people  inflict  on 
themselves  in  the  sacred  cause  of  correct- 
ness are  agonizing.  It  takes  something 
more  than  nerve  to  wear  a  silk  hat  and 
Prince  Albert  down  to  the  Homeburg  post- 
office  on  Sundays  to  get  the  mail  —  es- 
pecially with  Ad  Summers  always  on  hand 
to  spill  a  large  red  laugh  into  his  sleeve  and 
say  to  some  friend  in  a  tremendous  stage 

62 


TWO   FOUR- HUNDREDTHS 

whisper  that  the  darn  dude's  legs  must  be 
bowed  or  he  wouldn't  want  to  hide  'em 
that  way.  And  as  for  the  carriage  proposi- 
tion, I'm  certain  that  no  martyrs  have 
endured  more.  DeLancey  persuaded  Hi 
Nott  to  buy  a  real  city  carriage,  and  the  four 
have  used  it  faithfully;  only  the  Payleys 
and  Singers  live  in  different  edges  of  town, 
and  by  the  time  Hi  has  hauled  Sam  and  his 
sister  across  town  to  the  Payleys,  through 
Homeburg's  April  streets,  which  average 
a  little  more  depth  than  width,  and  has 
hauled  the  four  down  to  the  theater,  there 
are  usually  about  three  breakdowns.  I've 
seen  the  four  of  them  plodding  haughtily 
home  from  "  Wedded  but  No  Wife  ",  the 
girls  holding  their  imported  dresses  out  of 
the  mud,  and  the  boys  sounding  for  bottom 
on  the  crossings  with  their  canes,  while  Hi 
drove  the  carriage  solemnly  down  the  road 
beside  them.  The  mud  was  too  deep  for 
them  to  get  home  in  the  carriage,  but 
everybody  could  see  it  was  there  and  that 

63 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

they  had  paid  for  it  and  had  done  their 
darndest,  anyway.  After  all,  that's  no 
worse  than  the  way  you  New  Yorkers 
carry  your  gloves  in  your  hand  in  warm 
weather.  You  don't  need  them,  but  you 
want  the  world  to  know  you've  got  'em 
and  wouldn't  be  found  dead  without  'em. 

When  our  Smart  Set  gives  a  party,  we 
all  try  to  live  up  to  it  as  far  as  possible, 
and  so  we  insist  on  going  by  carriage.  Hi 
starts  hauling  us  at  six  o'clock,  six  to  a 
load  in  dry  weather,  and  he  usually  gets 
the  last  batch  there  just  in  time  to  begin 
hauling  the  first  platoon  home. 

But  those  are  just  little  troubles  for  our 
Smart  Set.  Your  Smart  Set  has  no  troubles 
except  the  job  of  spending  its  money  fast 
enough  to  keep  from  being  smothered  by 
the  month's  income.  It  does  what  it 
pleases,  and  if  anybody  objects,  it  raises 
the  price  of  something  or  other  by  way  of 
retort.  But  our  Smart  Set  has  to  live  in 
Homeburg,  and  what  is  more,  it  has  to  live 

64 


TWO   FOUR- HUNDREDTHS 

off  of  Homeburg,  which  is  as  hoity-toity 
a  place  to  live  off  of  as  you  can  find.  Sally 
Singer  can't  afford  to  offend  any  one  but 
the  depositors  in  the  Payley  Bank,  and  if 
DeLancey  caused  any  Homeburger  to  stalk 
down  to  his  father's  bank  and  extract  a 
thousand-dollar  savings  deposit,  old  man 
Payley  would  thrash  DeLancey  and  set  him 
to  work  on  his  farm.  They  have  to  show 
their  superiority  over  us  so  deftly  and 
pleasantly  that  we  don't  mind  it.  They 
have  to  keep  us  good-natured  while  de- 
spising us.  With  half  the  genius  for  con- 
temptuous conciliation  that  the  Payley 
and  Singer  children  have  displayed  in  the 
last  five  years,  the  French  nobility  could 
have  kept  the  peasantry  yelling  for  bread 
as  a  privilege  long  after  1793. 

Emma  Madigan  weighs  two  hundred 
pounds  and  drives  a  milk  route.  She  went 
to  high  school  with  Sally  Singer,  and  it  is 
the  joy  of  her  life  to  poke  her  head  into  the 
Singer  home  when  Sally  has  company  and 

65 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

yell:  "  Sail,  here's  your  milk!  "  But  Sally 
never  tries  to  refrigerate  her  with  the 
Spitzbergen  glare  which  she  uses  on  us 
collectively  when  she  goes  to  the  theater. 
You  couldn't  possibly  refrigerate  Emma, 
but  you  might  encourage  her  to  say  more 

—  like  the  time  when  Sarah  Payley  passed 
her  on  the  street  without  speaking,  being 
busy  treading  the  upper  altitudes  with  a 
young  Princeton  College  visitor,  and  Em 
yelled  back:  "For  goodness'  sakes,  Sarey, 
if  you  didn't  lace  so  tight  you  could  get 
your  chin  down  and  see  some  one!  ' 

But  most  of  us  are  not  so  frank.  We 
are  too  good-natured.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  we'd  hate  to  see  the  Payleys  and 
Singers  common.  They  help  to  make 
Homeburg  interesting,  and  so  long  as  they 
know  their  place  and  don't  irritate  us,  we 
wouldn't  hurt  their  feelings  for  the  world 

—  that  is,  not  much. 

There  was  a  dancing  school  in  Home- 
burg  two   winters    ago,    and    to   the   con- 

66 


TWO   FOUR- HUNDREDTHS 


sternation  of  every  one  the  Payley  and 
Singer  young  folks  joined  it.  It  took  two 
meetings  for  us  to  discover  what  had 
clogged  up  the  atmosphere  and  taken  the 
prance  out  of  things.  Then  we  tumbled. 
The  Payleys  and  Singers  were  educating 
us.  They  were  fitting  us  to  live  in  the 
rarified  upper  altitudes  of  refinement  and 
to  mingle  with  rank  without  stepping  all 
over  its  feet.  By  the  third  meeting  Henry 
Snyder  had  caught  on  to  most  of  the  signals 
and  he  explained  them  to  a  lot  of  us  before- 
hand with  care.  When  Sally  Singer 
dropped  on  to  a  bench  and  moved  her  skirt 
ever  so  slightly  aside  it  was  a  sign  that  the 
young  man  with  whom  she  was  speaking 
might  sit  down  and  hold  sweet  converse. 
And  when  Sarah  Payley  smiled  brightly  at 
a  gentleman  from  some  distance  and  just 
caressed  the  chair  beside  her  with  her  eye 
for  the  millionth  part  of  a  second,  that 
young  man,  if  he  had  a  spark  of  gentility 
in  him,  would  hurdle  the  intervening  chairs 

67 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

to  arrive.  We  also  discovered  how  to  get 
away  just  before  the  young  ladies  got 
bored,  by  other  delicate  signs,  and  how  to 
derive  the  fact  that  they  were  thirsty  and 
needed  sustenance,  and  just  how  to  im- 
prison them  in  our  strong  but  respectful 
arms  during  a  waltz,  and  how  to  collect 
fans  and  gloves  and  programs  and  hand- 
kerchiefs from  the  floor  without  grunting 
or  jolting  the  conversation.  It  was  hard 
work,  and  spoiled  the  evening  to  a  certain 
extent,  but  we  did  the  best  we  could  until 
Jim  Reebe  spoiled  it  all  in  the  fourth  les- 
son. Miss  Singer  had  collected  her  usual 
six  men  during  the  intermission  with  as 
many  bright  glances,  and  was  being  ad- 
mired properly  and  according  to  Hoyle, 
when  Jim  up  and  remarks,  in  his  mega- 
phone bass:  "  Say,  Sail,  you're  a  great 
work  of  art,  but  the  time  you  made  a  hit 
with  me  was  the  day  you  slid  down  the 
banisters  at  school." 

That  finished  the  course;   and  the  Smart 

68 


TWO    FOUR -HUNDREDTHS 

Set,  being  unanimously  absent  the  rest  of 
the  winter,  we  gave  ourselves  up  to  vulgar 
pleasure,  stuffed  our  white  gloves  back  into 
the  bureaus  and  yelled  for  encores  when  we 
couldn't  get  them  any  other  way. 

I'll  tell  you,  a  man  could  be  a  hero  to 
his  valet  with  half  the  exertion  which  it 
takes  to  be  a  Somebody  to  an  old  grammar- 
school  mate  in  a  small  town. 

Our  Smart  Set  is  disintegrating  now, 
and  things  look  blue  for  social  progress  in 
Homeburg.  Sally  Singer  is  getting  ready 
to  be  married  this  summer  to  a  Pittsburgh 
man  who  wears  a  cane.  The  remaining 
three  look  like  the  old  guard  at  Waterloo 
closing  in  under  a  heavy  fire.  Looks  to  me 
as  if  there  were  going  to  be  some  of  these 
mess  alliances  to  wind  up  with,  for  Sam 
Singer  is  calling  on  Mabel  Andrews  in 
citizen's  clothing,  she  having  jeered  him 
out  of  his  Prince  Albert;  and  Henry 
Snyder  has  stopped  scoffing  and  infests  the 
Payley  house  to  an  alarming  extent.     So  I 

69 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

imagine  that  our  Smart  Set  will  get  back 
to  shirtsleeves  in  two  generations  less  than 
yours  usually  requires,  and  we'll  miss  it  a 
lot.  Next  to  the  ill  feeling  between  the 
Argus  and  the  Democrat,  it  has  been  our 
greatest  diversion. 


70 


IV 

THE    SERVANT    QUESTION    IN    HOMEBURG 

How  Mrs.  Singer  Amuses  Us  All  by  Insist- 
ing on  Having  It 

NO  apologies,  Jim.  If  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  who  pre- 
pares your  meals  for  you  has 
packed  up  and  gone,  I  don't  need  any  ex- 
planations. I  understand  already.  You 
can't  ask  me  up  to  dinner  because  there 
isn't  going  to  be  any  dinner.  If  you  don't 
go  out  to  a  restaurant,  you'll  get  a  bite 
yourself  while  Mrs.  Jim  puts  the  children  to 
bed.  And  then  you'll  spend  the  evening 
wondering  where  you  can  beg,  borrow, 
abduct,  hypnotize,  or  manufacture  an- 
other cook. 

I  know  all  about  it.    The  great  sorrow 

7i 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

has  come  upon  you,  and  there's  only  one 
comfort  —  there  are  others.  It  falls  upon 
all  who  try  to  get  out  of  doing  their  own 
housework  in  New  York.  And  I'll  bet 
you  were  good  enough  to  the  last  cook, 
too  —  only  asked  her  for  one  night  out  a 
week,  came  to  her  meals  promptly,  didn't 
demand  more  than  a  fair  living  wage,  and 
let  her  have  the  rest.  Yes,  of  course  you 
did.  And  you're  going  to  let  the  next  one 
have  the  best  room  and  ring  for  her  break- 
fast in  the  morning,  aren't  you?  What? 
Draw  the  line  at  that?  Well,  Jim,  I  ad- 
mire your  nerve.  You're  one  of  the  grand 
old  rugged  patriots  who  will  not  be  trodden 
on.  Why  did  your  last  cook  leave,  any- 
way? 

Didn't  like  the  kitchen,  eh?  And  being 
in  a  flat  you  couldn't  tear  it  out  and  re- 
build it.  Yes,  I  agree  with  you.  The  serv- 
ant problem  in  New  York  is  getting  to  be 
very  serious.  To-day  you  are  gay  and 
happy  with  luxury  and  comfort  all  about 

72 


THE    SERVANT   QUESTION 

you,  and  to-morrow  you  are  picking  sar- 
dines out  of  a  can  with  a  fork  for  dinner. 
I  am  certainly  glad  I  live  in  the  country, 
where  servant  girls  do  not  come  on  Mon- 
day with  two  trunks  and  go  away  early 
Thursday  morning  with  three  trunks  and 
a  bundle. 

We  have  no  servant  problem  in  Home- 
burg.  However,  I  exclude  Mrs.  Singer 
from  this  "  we."  There  are  only  two 
servants  in  the  whole  town.  Mrs.  Singer 
has  them.  That  is,  she  tries  to  have  them. 
Mrs.  Singer's  attempt  to  have  servants  in 
a  town  which  is  full  of  hired  girls  is  one 
of  the  things  which  make  life  worth  living 
and  talking  about  in  Homeburg. 

How  do  I  know  about  it?  Bless  you, 
we  all  know  about  it.  It's  a  public  tragedy. 
Can't  help  ourselves.  We've  had  four  of 
Mrs.  Singer's  ex-servants  in  our  house  in 
six  years,  and  they  have  all  told  their 
troubles.  Mrs.  Singer  trains  girls  for  the 
entire   town.      She's   twice   as    good   as   a 

73 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

__^_^__^^_ .      .    |         |    ■nil  I      ■■IIMWIIM     III I    ■"■■!■      r    -  II     ' 

domestic  science  school,  and  she  doesn't 
charge  any  tuition.  She  is  devoting  her 
life  to  the  training  up  of  perfect  hired 
girls,  and  we  revel  in  the  results.  It  is 
ungrateful  of  us  to  blame  her  for  taking 
away  our  hired  girls,  because,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  she  is  our  greatest  blessing.  Right 
at  this  minute  in  Homeburg  I  know  that 
two  eager  families  are  sitting  around  wait- 
ing for  the  latest  Singer  class  in  domestic 
science  to  graduate  and  come  back  to  them 
for  jobs.  It  ought  to  come  most  any  time. 
The  course  rarely  lasts  over  three  months. 
You  see,  Mrs.  Singer  isn't  one  of  us. 
She  came  to  Homeburg  from  a  large  city, 
and  she  brought  her  ideas  with  her.  She's 
not  the  kind  of  a  woman,  either,  who  is 
going  to  cut  those  ideas  down  to  fit  Home- 
burg. Her  plan  is  to  change  Homeburg 
over  to  fit  her  ideas.  She's  been  working 
at  it  for  fifteen  years  now,  and  I  must  say 
she's  won  out  in  several  cases.  Dress  suits 
are  now  worn  quite  unblushingly,  we  have 

74 


THE    SERVANT   QUESTION 

a  country  club  half  a  mile  from  the  post- 
office  —  that's  the  advantage  of  a  small 
town,  you  can  get  away  from  the  rush  and 
bustle  of  the  city  into  the  sweet  cool 
country  in  about  four  jumps  —  and  no 
one  thinks  of  serving  a  party  dinner  with- 
out salad  any  more.  But  she's  fallen  down 
on  one  thing.  She  can't  keep  servants. 
That  problem  has  been  too  much  for  her. 
Mrs.  Payley,  her  rival,  has  had  the  same 
hired  girl  for  sixteen  years  or  more;  but 
Mrs.  Singer  scorns  a  hired  girl.  She  must 
have  servants,  two  of  them,  and  while  she 
has  a  remarkable  constitution  and  has 
stood  up  for  years  under  the  fight,  I  don't 
see  how  she  can  keep  it  up  much  longer. 

A  hired  girl  in  Homeburg  is  a  very 
reasonable  creature.  We  never  have  any 
trouble  with  them,  and  they  have  very 
little  with  us.  We  usually  catch  them 
green  and  wild,  just  off  the  steamer,  and 
they  come  to  us  equipped  with  a  thorough 
working    knowledge    of   the    Swedish    lan- 

75 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

guage,  and  nothing  else  to  speak  of.  Our 
wives  take  them  in  and  teach  them  how  to 
boil  water,  make  beds,  handle  a  broom, 
use  clothespins,  and  all  the  simpler  tricks 
of  housework,  to  say  nothing  of  an  ele- 
mentary knowledge  of  English,  which  they 
usually  acquire  in  a  month;  and  we  pay 
this  kind  a  couple  of  dollars  a  week,  and 
they  wash  the  clothes,  take  care  of  the 
furnace,  and  mow  the  lawn  with  great 
pleasure.  They  usually  stay  a  year  or  so 
and  then  they  go  to  Mrs.  Singer's  finishing 
school.  They  do  not  go  because  they  are 
discontented,  but  because  she  offers  them 
five  dollars  a  week,  which  is  a  pretty  fair- 
sized  chunk  of  the  earth  to  a  young  Swedish 
girl  just  learning  to  do  a  few  loops  and 
spirals  in  English  and  saving  up  the  steamer 
fare  to  bring  her  sister  over. 

Mrs.  Singer  takes  our  nice,  green,  young 
hired  girls,  who  are  willing  to  do  anything 
up  to  the  capacity  of  a  stout  back,  and 
she  tries  to  make  servants  out  of  them. 

76 


THE    SERVANT   QUESTION 

She  gives  them  embroidered  aprons  and 
caps  and  makes  them  keep  house  her  way. 
And  after  they  have  spent  a  couple  of 
months  making  coffee  to  suit  Mrs.  Singer, 
and  going  over  the  mahogany  to  suit  Mrs. 
Singer,  and  arranging  the  magazines  on 
the  table  to  suit  Mrs.  Singer,  and  taking 
up  the  breakfast  to  Miss  Sallie  to  suit  Mrs. 
Singer,  and  going  over  the  back  hall  again 
to  suit  Mrs.  Singer,  and  keeping  their 
mouths  closed  tightly  all  day  to  suit  Mrs. 
Singer,  and  only  going  out  on  Thursday 
afternoons  to  suit  Mrs.  Singer,  they  sort 
of  get  tired  of  the  job,  and  one  after  an- 
other they  stop  Mrs.  Singer  at  a  favorable 
moment  and  say  these  fatal  words: 
"  Aye  gass  aye  ent  stay  eny  longer.'1 
Then  some  Homeburg  family  joyfully 
seizes  on  the  deserter,  and  Mrs.  Singer 
starts  out  all  over  again  on  the  job  of 
making  a  servant  out  of  a  hired  girl. 

I   have  to   admire  the  woman   for    her 
eternal    grit.      She    won't    give    up    for    a 

77 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

minute.  She  is  going  to  run  her  house 
just  so  if  she  has  to  train  up  a  million  girls 
and  lose  them  all.  Half  the  time  she  has 
to  do  her  own  work,  but  I'll  bet  that  when 
she  has  the  luncheon  ready  she  puts  her 
little  white  lace  napkin  on  her  hair  and 
comes  in  and  announces  it  to  herself  in  the 
proper  style;  and  I'll  bet,  too,  that  she 
doesn't  talk  to  herself  while  she  is  working 
in  the  kitchen,  either.  She  says  the  way 
Homeburg  women  talk  to  their  servants  is 
disgraceful;  that  it  lowers  a  servant's  re- 
spect for  her  mistress.  I'd  give  a  lot  to 
see  Mrs.  Singer  looking  at  herself  coldly 
in  the  glass  after  breakfast  and  giving  her- 
self orders  for  the  day  in  a  tone  that  would 
brook  no  familiarity  whatever. 

Our  women-folks,  who  are  familiar  with 
the  Singer  residence,  say  that  it  is  a  beauti- 
ful thing  full  of  monogrammed  linen  and 
embroidered  towels  and  curtains  that  have 
to  be  washed  as  often  as  a  white  shirt,  and 
that  whenever  they   call  they  are  pretty 

78 


THE    SERVANT  QUESTION 

sure  to  find  Mrs.  Singer  trying  to  teach 
some  new  and  slightly  dizzy  second  girl 
how  to  take  care  of  the  house  without 
breaking  off  the  edges. 

You  observe  the  fluency  and  ease  with 
which  I  say  "  second  girl."  We  all  do  in 
Homeburg.  We're  used  to  talking  about 
second  girls  since  Mrs.  Singer  has  tried  to 
keep  one.  As  far  as  her  experience  has 
taught  us,  we  are  firmly  convinced  that 
having  a  second  girl  is  like  having  mumps 
on  the  other  side  too.  When  Mrs.  Singer 
isn't  busy  trying  to  teach  her  cook  how  to 
run  the  oven  and  the  plate  heater  and  serve 
the  soup  all  at  the  same  time,  she  is  at- 
tempting to  give  a  new  second  girl  some 
inkling  of  the  general  ideas  of  her  duties. 
Trouble  is  most  of  them  are  ten-second 
girls.  They  listen  to  the  program  in  the 
Singer  household  and  then  they  sprint  for 
safety  to  some  family  where  they  will  work 
twice  as  hard,  but  will  give  three  times  as 
much  satisfaction.    Then  Mrs.  Singer  arms 

79 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

herself  with  the  dust  rag  and  clear-starch 
bowl,  and  subs  on  the  job  until  she  finds 
a  new  second  girl  —  after  which  the  cook 
gives  up  her  job  with  a  loud  report,  and 
Mr.  Singer  stays  down-town  for  dinner  at 
the  Delmonico  Hotel  until  the  Singer  house 
management  is  staved  off  the  rocks  again. 

We  feel  sorry  for  the  Singers  and  invite 
them  out  a  good  deal  while  they  are  hunt- 
ing cooks.  And  they  pay  us  back  royally 
as  soon  as  the  household  staff  is  fully  re- 
cruited once  more.  We  eat  strange  but 
delicious  dishes  made  by  a  reluctant  and 
mystified  girl,  plus  Mrs.  Singer's  persua- 
siveness and  will  power;  and  said  girl,  still 
reluctant,  and  scared  into  the  bargain, 
serves  the  dinner  with  a  lace-edged  apron 
and  a  napkin  on  her  hair,  Mrs.  Singer  egg- 
ing her  in  loud  whispers  like  the  prompter 
in  grand  opera.  Steering  a  green  cook 
through  a  dinner  party,  and  keeping  up  a 
merry  conversation  at  the  same  time,  calls 
for  about  as  much  social  skill  as  anything 

80 


THE    SERVANT   QUESTION 


I  know  of.  I  myself  stand  in  awe  of  Mrs. 
Singer. 

As  for  the  rest  of  us  —  we  have  no  serv- 
ant problem,  having  no  servants.  And 
about  the  only  hired  girl  problem  we  have 
is  the  following:  "  Shall  the  girl  eat  with 
the  family  or  in  the  kitchen?"  Mrs. 
Singer  wished  that  on  us.  Ten  years  ago 
there  was  no  question  at  all.  The  girl  ate 
with  the  family,  and  waited  on  the  table 
when  something  was  needed  which  couldn't 
be  reached.  Then  Mrs.  Singer  came  to 
town  and  made  her  eat  in  the  kitchen,  since 
which  time  the  question  has  raged  with 
more  or  less  fury  and  the  whole  town  has 
chosen  up  sides  on  it.  Half  of  us  want  the 
girl  to  eat  in  the  kitchen,  and  the  other 
half  are  invincibly  democratic  and  have 
her  at  the  table. 

As  for  the  girls,  they  are  divided  too. 
Half  of  the  girls  who  come  to  see  about 
places  ask  us:  "  Do  I  have  to  eat  in  the 
kitchen?"  and  the  other  half  ask:    "  Do 

81 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

I  have  to  eat  with  the  family?  "  And  of 
course  it's  just  our  luck  that  the  people 
who  wish  to  dine  by  themselves  never  can 
find  girls  who  prefer  the  kitchen,  and  the 
people  who  insist  on  associating  with  their 
help  usually  lose  them  because  said  help 
has  been  spoiled  somewhere  else  by  being 
allowed  to  eat  in  the  kitchen,  far  from  the 
domestic  squabbles  and  the  children  with 
the  implacable  appetite  for  spread  bread. 

But  on  the  whole  this  problem  doesn't 
bother  us  much,  and  our  hired  girls  are  a 
great  comfort.  They  usually  stay  with  us 
until  they  are  married  or  retire  from  old 
age,  and  after  they've  been  ten  years  in  a 
house  they're  pretty  much  one  of  the 
family.  The  Payleys'  girl  has  been  with 
them  sixteen  years,  as  I  said  before,  and 
when  she  wants  to  go  to  the  opera-house 
to  an  entertainment,  Wert  Payley  makes 
young  DeLancey  Payley  take  her.  It's  the 
only  use  he's  found  for  DeLancey  as  yet. 
We  keep  out  of  the  kitchen  after  supper, 

82 


THE    SERVANT  QUESTION 

unless  too  strongly  pressed  by  thirst,  be- 
cause usually  from  seven  to  ten  some  hard- 
working young  Swedish  man  sits  bolt  up- 
right in  a  straight-backed  chair,  his  head 
against  the  wall,  discussing  romance  and 
other  subjects  of  interest  with  a  scared, 
resolute  expression.  Usually  this  goes  on 
for  about  three  years  before  anything  hap- 
pens. Then  the  girl  admits,  with  some 
hesitation,  that  she  is  going  to  get  married, 
and  our  wife  or  mother,  as  the  case  may 
be,  hustles  around  and  helps  make  the 
trousseau  and  pick  out  the  linen.  The 
wedding  takes  place  in  the  parlor,  and 
about  a  year  later  the  young  Swedish- 
American  citizen  who  arrives  is  named 
after  whatever  member  of  our  family  is 
the  most  convenient  as  to  sex. 

We  never  entirely  lose  a  good  hired  girl 
in  Homeburg.  They  pass  us  on  to  their 
relatives  when  they  are  married,  and  come 
back  to  visit  with  great  faithfulness.  In 
this  topsy-turvy  Eldorado  of  ours  where  a 

83 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

man  sometimes  becomes  rich  before  he 
really  knows  what  anything  larger  than 
five  dollars  looks  like,  many  of  our  girls 
draw  prizes  in  the  shape  of  good  farmers 
and  prosperous  young  merchants.  But 
their  heads  aren't  turned  by  it.  They 
come  around  in  their  new  automobiles 
and  take  us  out  riding,  just  as  if  we  had 
money  too.  The  wife  of  our  mayor  used 
to  work  for  us,  and  when  the  electric  light 
gang  stuck  a  light  where  it  would  shine 
straight  into  our  back  porch,  thus  reducing 
the  value  of  our  house  105  per  cent,  as  a 
place  of  employment  for  a  nice,  attractive 
girl  in  summers,  I  stepped  over  to  the 
mayor's  office  and  asked  him  if  he  remem- 
bered how  he  used  to  sit  on  that  porch 
himself.  He  smiled  once,  winked  twice, 
and  three  minutes  afterward  four  men 
were  on  their  way  to  relocate  that  pole. 

If  I  have  any  criticism  of  the  hired  girls 
in  our  town,  it  is  because  they  go  to  Europe 
too  much.     Now,  of  course,  it's  no  worse 

84 


THE    SERVANT   QUESTION 

for  a  hired  girl  to  go  to  Europe  for  the 
summer  than  it  is  for  any  one  else  to  in- 
dulge themselves  in  that  way.  But  that's 
the  irritating  part.  Nobody  else  goes. 
Outside  of  Mrs.  Wert  Payley  and  one 
or  two  school  teachers,  I  don't  suppose 
any  Homeburg  people  have  crossed  the 
Atlantic.  But  half  a  dozen  of  our  hired 
girls  go  every  year.  They  leave  late  in  the 
spring,  and  during  the  hot  weary  summer 
their  mistresses  toil  patiently  along  keeping 
the  job  open  if  they  can't  find  a  substitute 
who  will  work  for  a  few  months,  for  the 
girls  who  go  to  Europe  are  usually  pearls 
of  great  price  and  must  be  gotten  back  at 
all  cost.  I  don't  suppose  anything  is 
harder  on  the  temper  than  to  work  over  a 
hot  kitchen  stove  all  day  in  July,  and  then 
to  sit  down  to  supper,  a  damp  and  wilted 
mess  of  weariness,  and  read  a  souvenir 
card  from  your  hired  girl,  said  card  depicting 
a  cool  and  inviting  Swedish  meadow  with 
snow-topped  mountains  in  the  distance. 

85 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 


Our  girl  has  been  to  Europe  three  times. 
She  has  crossed  on  the  Mauretania,  the  old 
Deutschland  and  the  new  Olympic.  Two 
years  from  this  summer  she  thinks  she  will 
try  the  Imperator.  Often  in  the  evening 
she  tells  us  of  the  wonders  of  these  great 
vessels  —  of  the  beauty  of  the  sunset  at 
sea,  and  of  the  smoke  and  noise  and  maj- 
esty of  London.  I  suppose  it  indicates  a 
jealous  disposition,  but  it  makes  me  mad 
sometimes  to  think  that  it  takes  practically 
all  the  money  I  can  earn,  working  steadily 
and  with  two  weeks  off  per  year,  to  send 
that  girl  abroad. 

Of  course  I  don't  mean  it  just  that  way. 
She  doesn't  get  all  of  it.  In  fact  she  gets 
three  dollars  a  week  of  it.  Out  of  this  she 
saves  about  three  dollars  and  twenty-five 
cents  because  sometimes  she  gets  a  dollar 
extra  for  doing  the  washing.  And  when 
she  goes  to  Europe  for  the  summer  on  the 
same  ship  with  the  Astors  and  the  Vander- 
bilts,  it  sounds  more  magnificent  than  it 

86 


THE    SERVANT   QUESTION 

^ — ■wiirm^M— ^»^ ^— a^ — — mm — M^— — J— a^— a—   )  n    ,        » ,         .111, 

really  is.  She  is  on  the  same  ship,  but 
about  eleven  decks  down,  in  a  corner  of 
the  steerage  close  to  the  stern,  where  the 
smells  are  rich  and  undisturbed.  And  she 
doesn't  visit  ruins  and  art  galleries  in 
Europe,  but  a  huge  circle  of  loving  rela- 
tives, who  pass  her  around  from  farm  to 
farm  for  months,  while  she  does  amateur 
business  agent  work  for  the  steamship  lines, 
talking  up  the  wonders  of  America  and  — 
allow  me  to  blush  —  the  saintliness  of  her 
employers,  and  coming  blithely  back  home 
in  the  fall  with  three  or  four  old  childhood 
chums  for  roommates. 

Just  the  same,  I  envy  our  girls.  I  wish 
I  could  go  to  Europe  in  the  steerage,  not 
being  able  to  go  any  other  way. 

It's  a  fortunate  thing  for  us  that  our 
hired  girls  do  go  back  home  and  proselyte 
for  America,  or  else  we  would  soon  be  jam 
up  against  the  real  thing  in  help  problems. 
If,  for  any  reason,  the  Swedish  nation 
should    cease    contributing    to   Homeburg, 

87 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

we  should  have  to  do  our  own  work.  I 
often  wonder  at  the  things  our  American 
girls  will  do  rather  than  to  go  on  the  fight- 
ing deck  as  commander  of  some  one  else's 
kitchen.  Twenty-five  of  our  girls  go  up 
to  Paynesville  every  morning  at  six  on 
the  interurban  and  make  cores  in  the  rolling 
mills  there  all  day.  Carfare  and  board 
deducted,  they  get  less  than  a  good  hired 
girl  —  and  they  don't  go  to  Europe  for  the 
summers  and  never  by  any  chance  marry 
some  rising  young  farmer  who  has  made 
the  first  payment  on  a  quarter  section. 
Several  of  our  middle-aged  young  ladies 
sew  for  a  dollar  a  day  and  keep  house  by 
themselves.  And  there's  Mary  Smith,  who 
has  been  a  town  problem.  She's  thirty- 
five  and  an  orphan.  She  lives  in  a  house 
about  as  large  as  a  piano  box  and  tries  to 
scare  away  the  wolf  by  selling  flavoring 
extracts  and  taking  orders  for  books.  She's 
never  more  than  two  meals  ahead  of  an 
embarrassing  appetite.     Every  fall  we  dig 

88 


THE    SERVANT  QUESTION 

down  and  buy  her  winter  coal,  and  she 
hasn't  bought  any  clothes  for  ten  years. 
Some  one  gives  her  an  ex-dress  and  Mary 
does  her  best  to  make  it  over,  but  she 
never  looks  much  more  enticing  than  a 
scarecrow  in  the  result. 

Mary's  hands  are  red  with  chilblains  in 
the  winter,  and  the  poorhouse  yawns  for 
her.  But  will  she  take  a  place  as  hired 
girl?  Not  she.  Mary  has  her  pride. 
She'll  sell  you  things  you  don't  want, 
which  is  as  near  begging  as  graft  is  to 
politics,  and  she'll  wear  second-hand  clothes 
and  take  home  cold  bread  pudding  from 
the  hotel  —  but  she  will  not  be  a  hired 
girl  and  go  to  Europe  in  the  summer  and 
marry  into  an  automobile.  Once  she  did 
consent  to  become  Mrs.  Singer's  second 
girl.  Mrs.  Singer  was  desperate,  and  after 
a  long  defense  Mary  consented  on  condi- 
tion that  she  be  called  the  "  up-stairs 
maid."  But  she  only  lasted  three  days. 
Mary    could    have    drawn    five    dollars    a 

89 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

week  and  Mrs.  Singer's  clothes,  which 
would  have  fitted  her.  But  Mary  couldn't 
take  orders  —  not  that  kind.  She  came 
back  to  take  orders  from  us  for  a  patent 
glass  washtub  or  something  of  the  kind  — 
and  we  sighed  wearily. 


90 


V 


homeburg's  leisure  class 

It  is  not  as  large  as  New  York's  but  it  is 

twice  as  ingenious 

CONFOUND    it,    Jim,    I    wish    you 
hadn't  told   me    that   your   friend 
Williston   never  worked   a   day  in 
his  life!     You  don't  know  how  it  disap- 
pointed me. 

Why?  Because  I  don't  know  when  I 
have  met  a  man  whom  I  liked  so  much  at 
first  sight  as  I  did  Williston.  He  suited 
me  from  the  ground  up.  I  never  spent  a 
more  interesting  afternoon  with  any  one. 
No  matter  what  he  did,  he  interested  me 
—  I  enjoyed  watching  him  handle  his  cigar 
as  well  as  I  did  hearing  him  tell  about  his 
Amazon    adventures.     Says    I    to    myself: 

91 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

"  Here  is  a  man  whose  friendship  I  will 
win  if  I  have  to  live  in  New  York  all  my 
life  to  get  it."  And  then  you  had  to  go 
and  spoil  it  all. 

Oh,  yes,  I  know  it's  just  my  backwoods 
way  of  looking  at  things.  I'm  not  saying 
what  I  do  as  a  boast.  I'm  making  a  con- 
fession of  it.  I  know  why  Williston  doesn't 
work.  It's  because  he  owns  a  piano  box  full 
of  bonds  left  by  his  late  lamented  pa,  and 
when  he  was  educated,  the  word  "  work  " 
was  crossed  out  of  his  spelling-book  in  red 
ink.  And  I'm  not  saying  that  he  isn't  a 
fine  fellow.  He's  intelligent  and  witty  and 
companionable  and  forty  other  desirable 
things.  But  he  won't  work.  Somehow 
that  sticks  in  my  vision  of  him.  It  reminds 
me  of  the  case  of  Mamie  Gastit,  who  was 
the  prettiest,  best-dispositioned,  and  most 
capable  girl  in  Homeburg,  but  who  had  a 
glass  eye.  We  didn't  hold  it  up  against 
her,  but  it  made  us  awfully  sad.  There 
were  plenty  of  Homeburg  girls  who  would 

92 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

have  been  decorated  by  a  glass  eye.  Why 
did  Providence  have  to  wish  it  on  the  finest 
girl  in  town? 

You  say  it  is  no  crime  not  to  work  in 
New  York  ?  Bless  you,  I  know  it.  In  fact, 
loafing  in  New  York  is  the  most  fascinating 
business  in  the  world.  Why,  it  seems  as  if 
you  New  York  men  actually  struggle  to 
get  spare  time.  I've  sat  in  your  office  and 
watched  you  on  Saturday  morning  working 
yourself  into  a  blue  haze  in  your  efforts 
to  get  done  early  enough  to  cord  up  a  fine 
big  mess  of  leisure  on  Saturday  afternoon. 
That's  the  difference  between  New  York 
and  Homeburg.  In  Homeburg  you  would 
have  been  stretching  out  your  job  to  last 
until  supper  time  —  unless  you  were  one 
of  our  nineteen  golfers,  or  the  roads  were 
good  enough  to  let  you  drive  over  to  the 
baseball  game  at  Paynesville. 

Leisure  in  New  York  means  pleasure, 
excitement,  and  seven  dozen  kinds  of  in- 
terest.    But  for  many  and   many  a   long 

•  93 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

year  in  hundreds  of  Homeburg  homes, 
leisure  has  meant  waiting  for  meal  times 
—  and  not  much  of  anything  else. 

City  people  laugh  at  country  people 
for  beating  the  chickens  to  roost.  But 
what  are  you  going  to  do  when  going  to 
bed  is  the  most  fascinating  diversion  avail- 
able after  supper?  I've  noticed  that  as 
fast  as  a  small  town  man  discovers  some- 
thing else  to  do  in  the  evening,  his  light 
bill  goes  up  and  up.  When  crokinole  was 
introduced  into  Homeburg  twenty  odd 
years  ago,  the  kerosene  wagon  had  to  make 
an  extra  mid-week  trip.  When  the  maga- 
zines came  down  from  thirty-five  cents  to 
ten  and  you  could  get  three  of  them  and  a 
set  of  books  for  one  dollar  down  and  a 
dollar  a  month  until  death  did  you  part, 
they  had  to  put  an  operator  in  the  tele- 
phone exchange  after  8  p.  m.  because  of  the 
general  sleeplessness.  When  the  automo- 
bile came,  and  when  two  moving  picture 
theaters,   a    Chautauqua,  and    a    Lyceum 

94 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

course  opened  fire  in  one  year,  and  the 
business  men  fitted  up  a  club  with  an  an- 
cient pool  table  in  it,  Homeburg  got 
chummy  with  all  the  evening  hours,  and 
kicked  so  hard  about  the  electric  lights 
going  off  at  midnight  that  the  company 
had  to  run  them  an  hour  longer.  And  I 
suppose  if  any  invader  ever  puts  in  an 
all-night  restaurant  where  you  can  have 
lobster  and  a  soubrette  on  the  table  at 
the  same  time,  a  certain  proportion  of  us 
will  get  as  foolish  as  you  are  and  will  for- 
get how  to  go  to  bed  at  all  by  artificial 
light. 

We've  changed  that  much  from  the 
past  generation.  We  know  what  to  do 
with  leisure  in  the  evening.  But  we're 
still  awkward  and  embarrassed  when  we 
meet  it  by  daylight.  Since  we  have  built 
our  Country  Club,  a  few  of  us  have  learned 
to  enjoy  ourselves  in  a  fitful  and  guilty 
fashion  late  in  the  afternoon.  But  as  a 
rule,  even  to-day,  when  you  give  a  Home- 

95 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

burg  man  a  bright  golden  daylight  hour 
of  leisure,  he  has  no  more  use  for  it  than 
he  would  have  for  a  five-ton  white  ele- 
phant with  an  appetite  for  ice-cream. 
And  that,  Jim,  is  why  I  can't  speed  my- 
self up  to  appreciate  a  young  man  who 
has  never  worked  and  never  intends  to. 
I  still  have  to  look  at  him  with  my  Home- 
burg  eyes.  And  in  Homeburg,  when  a 
man  doesn't  work  when  he  has  a  chance 
and  takes  what  amusement  we  have  to 
offer  as  a  steady  diet  in  perfect  content, 
we  know  something  is  the  matter  with 
him  —  and  we  are  sorry  for  him. 

Leisure  has  killed  more  people  in  Home- 
burg than  work  ever  did.  For  years  our 
biggest  problem  was  the  job  of  keeping 
our  retired  farmers  alive.  When  a  farmer 
has  worked  forty  years  or  so,  and  has 
accumulated  a  quarter  section  of  land,  and 
a  few  children  who  need  high  school  edu- 
cation, he  rents  his  farm  and  moves  into 
town,  where  he  lives  comfortably  on  eighty 

96 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

dollars  a  month  and  fills  a  tasty  tomb 
in  a  very  few  years.  It  isn't  so  hard  on 
the  farmer's  wife,  because  she  takes  her 
housework  into  town  with  her  and  keeps 
busy.  But  when  the  farmer  has  settled 
down  in  town,  far  from  a  chance  to  work, 
he  discovers  that  he  has  about  fourteen 
hours  of  leisure  each  day  on  his  hands 
and  nothing  to  do  with  them  but  to  eat. 
Out  of  regard  for  his  digestion  he  can't 
eat  more  than  three  hours  a  day.  That 
leaves  him  eleven  hours  in  which  to  go 
down-town  for  the  mail  and  do  the  chores 
around  the  house. 

He  stands  it  pretty  well  the  first  year. 
The  second  year  is  so  long  that  he  begins 
to  lay  plans  for  his  centennial,  and  about 
the  third  year  he  takes  to  his  bed  and  dies, 
with  a  sigh  of  relief.  That's  what  leisure 
does  to  a  Homeburg  man  who  isn't  used 
to  it.  And  that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why, 
when  I  see  a  man  in  New  York  with  noth- 
ing to  do  from  choice,  I  think  of  the  sad 

97 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

army  of  the  unemployed  in  Homeburg 
draping  themselves  around  the  grain  office 
every  day  in  fine  weather,  and  wearing 
away  the  weary  years  in  idleness  because 
they  are  too  old  to  work,  and  don't  have 
to,  anyway. 

Of  late  years  we  have  been  working 
earnestly  to  conserve  our  retired  farmers. 
They  are  fine  men,  and  we  hate  to  see 
them  wasted.  We  have  been  trying  to 
reduce  their  leisure  —  just  as  a  city  man 
tries  to  reduce  his  flesh.  We  elect  them 
to  everything  possible.  We  have  taught 
a  number  of  them  how  to  play  pool  in  the 
Commercial  Club.  We  have  started  a  farm- 
ers' elevator,  a  farmers'  bank  and  a  planter 
factory,  and  have  got  them  to  invest 
money.  That  has  been  a  godsend,  because 
it  has  kept  a  large  number  of  them  busy 
and  happy  trying  to  save  the  said  money. 
But  where  we  have  saved  one  retired 
farmer,  the  automobile  has  saved  ten. 
Whenever  one  of  our   unemployed  comes 

98 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

out  with  a  machine,  we  sigh  with  relief 
and  stop  worrying  about  him.  It's  just 
the  same  as  if  he  had  been  given  wings  and 
a  world  to  explore.  In  summer,  our  re- 
tired farmers  who  have  autos  loaf  around 
the  country  from  Indiana  to  Idaho  and  talk 
crops  in  the  garages  of  a  thousand  towns. 
And  in  winter  they  rebuild  their  cars,  and 
talk  good  roads.  Twenty  years  ago  you 
could  talk  good  roads  to  a  farmer  or  bang 
him  with  a  club,  with  the  same  result.  But 
last  year  our  retired  farmers  organized 
a  good  roads  association,  and  to  amuse 
themselves  they  have  dragged  the  roads 
for  miles  around  and  have  built  a  mile  of 
rock  road  leading  south  to  the  cemetery  — 
where  in  the  old  April  days,  as  Henry 
Snyder  says,  the  deceased  was  buried 
once,  but  the  mourners  got  buried  twice  — 
going  out  and  coming  back. 

We  have  a  real  leisure  class  in  Home- 
burg,  however,  outside  of  the  retired  farm- 
ers,   who    really    can't    help    themselves. 

99 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

Our  genuine  metropolitan  leisure  class  con- 
sists of  DeLancey  Payley  and  Gibb  Ogle. 
They  are,  as  far  as  I  know,  the  only  two 
people  in  Homeburg  who  loaf  from  choice 
year  in  and  year  out  in  perfect  content. 
We  have  done  our  best  with  both  of  them, 
but  we  have  given  up.  Leisure  is  what 
they  were  created  for.  It  is  a  talent  with 
them,  and  their  only  talent.  They  have 
developed  it  to  the  best  of  their  ability. 

DeLancey's  is  the  saddest  case,  because 
so  much  money  was  wasted  on  him.  Wert 
Payley  is  the  richest  man  in  our  part  of 
the  country.  He  owns  a  bank  and  one  or 
two  counties  out  West.  He  sent  DeLancey 
East  to  school,  where  he  was  educated 
regardless  of  expense  or  anything  else  and 
was  returned  a  few  years  ago  a  finished 
product,  sublime,  though  a  little  terrify- 
ing to  look  at,  and  reeking  with  knowledge 
of  one  kind  or  another.  I  have  heard  it 
said  that  DeLancey  can  tell  offhand  what 
has    been    the    correct   thing    in    dress    for 

ioo 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

each  of  the  last  thirty-five  years,  and  that 
he  can  handle  as  many  as  fifteen  articles 
of  cutlery  and  forkery  at  a  dinner  table 
with  absolute  accuracy. 

DeLancey  has  been  at  home  almost 
ten  years  now,  and  his  chief  mission  has 
been  to  ornament  Homeburg  and  add  to 
its  elegance  on  state  occasions.  His  father 
had  designed  him  for  a  captain  of  finance, 
and  when  he  first  came  home  DeLancey 
was  put  in  the  bank  in  order  that  he  might 
work  up  by  degrees  into  the  bond  business 
or  some  other  auriferous  form  of  toil. 
Wert  Payley  almost  had  nervous  pros- 
tration from  overwork  that  year,  and  in 
the  end  he  had  to  give  up.  He  couldn't 
carry  his  own  load  and  make  DeLancey 
work  too.  It  was  too  much.  No  human 
being  should  be  asked  to  do  it.  Wert 
often  says  that  if  he  had  had  nothing  else 
to  do  he  could  have  kept  DeLancey  at 
work  at  least  part  of  the  time,  but  that 
he  was  too  old  to  shoulder  the  task  on  top 

IOI 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

of  his  other  duties.  So  DeLancey  left  the 
bank,  except  as  an  enthusiastic  check 
casher,  and  took  up  his  life  work  —  I 
mean  that,  of  course,  figuratively.  I  mean 
his  life  occupation  —  hang  it,  that  won't 
do  either!  He  took  up  his  mission  —  the 
work  for  which  his  ardent  young  soul 
was  fitted.  He  began  to  specialize  in  lei- 
sure. 

For  close  to  nine  years  DeLancey  has 
loafed.  It  is  a  miracle  to  us.  We  can't 
understand  his  endurance.  Yet  he  thrives 
on  it.  Wert  Payley  has  given  up  trying 
to  make  him  work,  but  he  has  taken  what 
he  considers  to  be  an  awful  revenge.  He 
has  refused  to  spend  one  cent  for  carfare. 
DeLancey  can  hang  around  Homeburg 
until  he  dies,  but  if  he  wants  to  leave,  he 
must  earn  the  money  himself.  And  De- 
Lancey hasn't  been  fifty  miles  from  Home- 
burg since  he  slipped  the  clutch  out  of  his 
tired,  throbbing  brain  and  let  it  rest,  nine 
years  ago. 

102 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

We  have  to  admire  his  ingenuity.  He 
kills  time  so  scientifically.  They  say  it 
takes  him  two  hours  to  do  himself  up  in 
the  morning  after  he  gets  out  of  bed,  and 
that  he  has  almost  as  many  beautifying 
tools  as  an  actress.  He  doesn't  get  down- 
town before  ten.  It  takes  him  from  fif- 
teen minutes  to  half  an  hour  to  buy  his 
morning  cigar.  That  is,  he  talks  to  Mc- 
Muggins,  the  druggist,  as  long  as  Mac 
will  stand  for  it.  Mac  has  a  regular  sched- 
ule. If  Delancey  buys  a  ten-cent  cigar, 
Mac  will  talk  with  him  fifteen  minutes. 
If  he  buys  a  fifteen-cent  cigar,  he  will 
talk  half  an  hour,  if  business  isn't  too 
brisk.  Mac  keeps  a  box  of  fifteen-cent 
cigars  especially  for  DeLancey,  but  he 
says  it  is  an  awful  risk.  If  DeLancey  were 
to  die  on  him,  he  couldn't  sell  those  cigars 
in  a  hundred  years. 

The  tellers  at  the  bank  are  good  for 
fifteen  minutes  or  so  after  DeLancey  has 
bought  his  cigar;  he  strolls  in  and  gossips 

103 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

with  them  until  his  father  begins  to  snort 
ominously  in  his  little  railed-off  pen  marked 
"  President."  Cooney  Simpson,  the  tailor, 
likes  DeLancey,  and  they  talk  clothes 
for  half  an  hour  almost  every  morning. 
Then  it's  noon,  and  this  is  his  hardest 
problem,  because  every  one  goes  to  dinner 
at  noon  except  the  Payleys  and  Singers, 
who  have  luncheon  at  one.  If  DeLancey 
can  find  Sam  Singer,  he  is  all  right.  But 
Sam,  who  used  to  loaf  enthusiastically 
with  him,  has  rosy  ideas  about  Mabel 
Andrews  now,  and  he  is  working  hard  in 
his  father's  bank  and  on  the  farms.  It 
was  a  bitter  day  for  DeLancey  when  Sam 
went  to  work.  It  almost  shook  his  faith 
in  idleness.     But  he  stood  firm. 

Luncheon  kills  two  hours  for  DeLancey, 
and  then  he  goes  up  to  the  Homeburg 
Commercial  Club  and  shoots  the  pool 
balls  around  the  table  until  4:30,  waiting 
eagerly  for  some  one  to  stop  working  and 
come  to  play  with  him.     Sometimes  they 

104 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

come  and  sometimes  they  don't.  If  they 
don't,  he  goes  down  to  the  hotel  and  talks 
with  a  traveling  man.  I  often  see  him  in 
the  lobby  of  the  Delmonico,  sitting  in 
magnificent  ease,  blowing  large  smoke 
rings  and  talking  with  an  air  of  uncon- 
scious grandeur  to  some  eager-eyed  drum- 
mer, who  is  delighted  but  mystified  at 
the  ease  with  which  he  is  breaking  into 
the  first  families.  DeLancey  has  a  quiet 
way  of  talking  about  the  East  and  the 
great  people  thereof  which  fools  even  us 
sometimes. 

DeLancey  makes  his  toilet  after  dinner 
at  night  and  that  of  course  kills  an  hour 
or  more.  Then  he  calls  on  Madeline  Hicks, 
old  Judge  Hicks's  daughter,  when  she 
will  let  him.  He  has  an  idea  he  would 
like  to  marry  her,  but  while  she  likes  him, 
they  say  she  can't  bring  herself  to  marry 
a  man  of  leisure  and  have  the  whole  town 
sorry  for  her.  But  he  takes  her  to  all  the 
parties,  and  about  once  a  week  his  father 

i  os 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

lets  him  have  the  automobile,  if  the  chauf- 
feur doesn't  want  to  use  it.  On  other 
nights  DeLancey  comes  down-town  and 
buys  another  cigar  at  the  restaurant.  It 
is  as  good  as  a  show  to  see  DeLancey  buy 
his  evening  cigar.  You'd  think  he  was 
taking  over  a  railroad,  he  chooses  it  with 
such  care.  The  young  farmer  boys  and 
the  workers  in  the  factory  come  down- 
town at  night  and  loaf  around  the  res- 
taurants without  any  excuse.  They  have 
to  kill  the  time.  But  that  would  be  too 
coarse  work  for  DeLancey.  He  doesn't 
come  down-town  to  loaf  —  Oh,  no!  He 
has  merely  dropped  in  on  his  orbit.  It 
takes  him  half  the  evening  to  buy  his 
cigar  and  smoke  it,  conversing  as  he  does 
so  with  a  few  selected  citizens  on  the  bene- 
fits of  slim-cut  clothes  and  the  origin^of 
the  pussy-cat  hat. 

Sometimes  DeLancey  can  abduct  some 
busy  young  chap  and  make  him  play  a 
round    of    golf    on    week-day    afternoons, 

1 06 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

but  not  often.  That's  the  difference  be- 
tween our  clubs  and  yours.  We  have 
clubs,  but  we  don't  use  them.  We  wouldn't 
think  of  spending  time  there  if  we  could 
spend  it  at  business.  Nothing  is  lonelier 
on  week  days  than  our  golf  club,  and  one 
of  the  chief  duties  of  the  caretaker  at  the 
Commercial  Club  is  to  dust  off  the  read- 
ing table.  We  have  our  clubs,  and  that 
is  the  main  object.  We  know  that  they 
are  there,  and  that  we  could  enjoy  them 
if  we  wanted  to.  Perhaps  we  do  want  to. 
But  it's  a  hard  art  to  learn.  And,  oh, 
how  patiently  and  earnestly  DeLancey 
is  trying  to  teach  us!  If  it  were  any  one 
but  he,  we  might  learn  faster.  But  he 
sort  of  figures  as  a  horrible  example.  It's 
like  a  battered  and  yellowed  wreck  advo- 
cating cigarettes,  or  a  bald-headed  barber 
pushing  his  own  hair  tonic. 

Gibb  Ogle,  the  other  member  of  our 
leisure  class,  is  a  very  different  kind  of  a 
bird.     His  art  is  more  sublime  than  De- 

107 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

Lancey's  because  he  has  no  one  to  support 
him.  He  has  worked  down  to  his  present 
state  from  nothing  at  all.  He  is  a  self- 
unmade  man.  With  no  resources,  not 
even  a  loving  wife  with  a  wash  tub,  he 
lives  a  life  of  perfect  ease  and  idleness. 
He  doesn't  even  have  to  hunt  for  means 
of  killing  time,  as  DeLancey  does.  Time 
with  him  dies  a  natural  death.  He  is  not 
implicated  in  the  sad  event  in  any  way. 
All  he  does  is  to  watch  its  demise.  He 
watches  whole  hours  pass  away  while 
leaning  against  the  door-frame  of  the  Del- 
monico  Hotel.  Chet  Frazier  and  Sim 
Bone  got  into  an  argument  one  day,  and 
to  settle  it  they  went  over  and  took  Gibb 
away  from  the  building.  It  didn't  fall, 
and  Sim  won.  Gibb  has  watched  several 
thousand  hours  expire  while  propping  up 
the  Q.  B.  &  C.  depot.  He  is  the  chief 
spectator  at  every  fire,  runaway,  dog  fight 
and  public  event.  He  is  a  movable  land- 
mark,   as    permanent    as    the    Republican 

1 08 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

flagpole  in  the  city  park.  I  have  never 
yet  gone  down-town  in  the  morning  with- 
out seeing  Gibb  on  the  street.  And  very 
seldom  have  I  gone  home  at  night,  even 
in  the  howling  blizzards  of  winter,  with- 
out passing  Gibb  leaning  against  the  warm 
bright  show  window  of  the  last  open  place 
of  business,  and  waiting  with  placid  greed- 
iness for  one  final  event  of  some  kind  to 
transpire  before  going  to  his  well-earned 
repose. 

Beside  Gibb's  leisure,  DeLancey's  is 
poor  amateurish  stuff.  Gibb's  total  in- 
come during  the  year  would  hardly  exceed 
twenty-five  dollars,  and  it  doesn't  do  him 
much  good  at  that.  When  he  gets  any 
money,  he  eats  it  up  in  the  most  deter- 
mined and  hasty  fashion.  I  have  seen 
him  eat  a  dollar's  worth  of  ham  sand- 
wiches in  an  afternoon  —  because  he  had 
the  dollar.  What  he  does  between  dollars 
is  a  town  mystery.  He  doesn't  beg.  He 
is  believed  by  some  to  absorb  sustenance 

109 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

from  the  air,  like  a  plant.  But  I  happen 
to  know  that  he  absorbs  a  good  deal  of 
sustenance  from  the  Delmonico  Hotel. 
He  has  attached  himself  to  this  hotel  as  a 
sort  of  retainer,  and  through  all  its  changes 
of  ownership  he  has  hung  on.  He  will 
not  work,  but  he  gives  the  place  his  moral 
support  and  speaks  highly  of  it  to  all 
comers.  He  will  even  carry  a  satchel 
across  to  the  depot,  but  only  as  an  accom- 
modation to  the  hotel.  In  return  he  asks 
nothing  and  thus  saves  his  proud  spirit 
from  the  insult  of  a  refusal.  But  I  think 
he  has  first  pick  of  the  scattered  remains 
of  the  dinners  that  leave  the  kitchen  door 
whenever  the  cook  is  good-natured. 

I  say  I  think  so,  because  few  of  us  have 
seen  Gibb  Ogle  eat.  He  has  a  pride,  and 
performs  this  humiliating  act  in  secret. 
But  grocers  tell  me  that  he  is  always  offer- 
ing to  dispose  of  broken-up  crackers,  stale 
cheese  and  old  mackerel.  "  I'll  just  carry 
that  out  for  you,"   he   says.     And   they 

no 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

understand  and  let  him  do  it.  One  night 
as  he  hurried  past  me,  a  package  dropped 
from  under  his  coat  and  broke  at  my  feet. 
It  was  food  —  dry  bread  and  a  bologna 
skin  with  a  little  meat  in  the  end.  He 
stopped  and  told  me  how  hard  it  was  to 
find  food  for  a  dog  in  which  he  was  inter- 
ested. But  that  was  a  fib.  With  all  his 
faults  Gibb  never  maintained  a  dog  in 
idleness. 

In  summers  Gibb  leads  a  care-free, 
happy  life,  sunning  himself  all  day  and 
sleeping  comfortably  at  night  in  any  one 
of  a  dozen  places.  He  is  our  village  grass- 
hopper, taking  no  thought  of  the  chill 
future.  How  he  lives  through  our  fierce 
winters  is  a  mystery.  He  sleeps  in  barns. 
He  sleeps  on  the  coal  in  the  electric  light 
power  house.  If  the  clerk  at  the  hotel 
happens  to  be  a  friend  of  his,  he  curls  up 
in  a  chair  in  the  lobby.  Sometimes  all 
of  these  fail  him.  I  have  heard  that  he 
spent  one  winter  in  an  empty  room  over  a 

in 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

store,  and  thawed  out  his  toes  on  several 
mornings.  We  are  always  afraid  some 
crackling  January  dawn  will  find  Gibb 
frozen  hard  on  the  streets,  and  it  is  a  relief 
when  spring  comes  and  he  begins  to  fatten 
up  a  little  and  drink  in  sunshine  again. 

We'd  like  to  send  Gibb  to  the  county 
home.  Some  of  us  are  even  willing  to 
contribute  to  his  support,  scandalous  as 
it  would  be.  But  it  is  hard  to  do,  because 
Gibb  is  no  pauper.  He  is  a  gentleman  of 
leisure  with  the  dignity  of  an  Indian.  His 
worn  suits  are  neat,  and  he  is  as  dapper 
with  a  battered  hat  and  a  four-year-old 
celluloid  collar  as  if  he  spent  real  money 
on  his  wardrobe.  He  chooses  his  life  and 
lives  it  without  complaint.  Periodically 
we  strive  heroically  to  make  him  work. 
The  boys  at  the  planter  factory,  who  are 
a  rough  lot  but  have  some  hold  on  Gibb 
because  they  entertain  him  out  of  their 
lunch  boxes,  kidnap  him  about  twice  a 
year  and  drag  him  in  to  the  superintend- 

112 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

ent  to  get  a  job  for  him.  Gibb  protests 
frantically  that  he  has  business  which 
can't  be  neglected  —  that  he  is  just  closing 
a  deal  for  a  good  position  at  the  hotel  — 
that  he  is  going  away  on  a  trip  —  but 
nothing  helps  him.  He  accepts  the  job 
with  ill-concealed  horror,  and  the  factory 
boys  climb  up  on  the  roof  of  the  main 
building  and  hoist  a  flag.  We  all  know 
what  it  means.  Gibb  is  working  again. 
And  we  all  know  what  will  happen  next. 
About  two  days  later  Gibb  will  be  limp- 
ing to  the  factory  very  late  with  his  off- 
foot  done  up  in  an  enormous  comforter. 
"  That's  what  you  have  done,  boys,"  he 
will  say  with  simple  dignity,  "  you've 
hurt  that  old  sore  foot  of  mine.  It's  never 
been  right  since  I  hurt  it  with  the  fire 
company.  It's  in  awful  shape  now.  I 
guess  I'll  lose  it  at  last.  You  oughtn't 
to  have  done  it,  boys.  Goodness  knows, 
I'd  have  worked  all  these  years  if  I'd  had 
any  foot  to  speak  of." 

ii3 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

Then  he  goes  in  and  resigns  —  after 
which  the  foot  recovers  in  great  haste,  and 
Gibb  stands  on  it  relentlessly  twelve  hours 
a  day  in  the  old  way,  while  he  watches 
the  world  go  round  and  waits  for  the  judg- 
ment day. 

You'd  think  from  the  way  we  hammer 
at  both  DeLancey  and  Gibb  to  go  to  work 
that  they  would  hang  together,  being  in 
the  same  class.  But  they  don't.  In  fact 
they  have  the  greatest  contempt  for  each 
other.  DeLancey  will  not  speak  to  Gibb, 
and  thinks  it  is  a  crime  that  he  isn't  sent 
to  the  stone  pile;  while  Gibb  speaks  of 
DeLancey  in  pitying  accents  as  a  young 
man  who  ought  to  know  better  than  to 
waste  his  time  herding  a  little  white  pill 
into  a  hole  in  a  cow  pasture.  Gibb  is  very 
severe  on  the  frivolities  of  the  prosperous. 
He  can't  bear  to  see  them  frittering  away 
their  time. 

That's  our  leisure  class  in  Homeburg, 
and  it  isn't  growing.     If  it  was  we'd  be 

114 


HOMEBURG'S    LEISURE    CLASS 

worried,  and  the  Commercial  Club  would 
hold  meetings  about  it.  And  I'm  just 
telling  you  these  things  so  that  you'll  see 
why  I  am  so  warped  and  foolish  regarding 
Williston;  it's  just  my  small  town  igno- 
rance —  My,  I  wish  that  chap  would 
get  a  job! 


"5 


VI 


homeburg's  worst  enemy 


How  Old  Man  Opportunity  Stands  Outside 

the  Tozvn  and  Beckons  to  her 

Greatest  Men 

YOU  don't  say,  Jim!  Gosh,  let  me 
look!  Where?  Behind  the  big  fel- 
low in  the  two-gallon  plug  hat? 
There  —  I  see  him!  Yes,  sir!  It's  he! 
I  could  tell  him  anywhere.  Do  you  sup- 
pose we  could  get  up  nearer?  What,  go 
up  in  the  elevator  with  him?  Say,  I  haven't 
the  nerve.  No,  I  don't  want  —  This  is 
close  enough  —  Why,  there  isn't  even  a 
crowd!  You  mean  to  say  he  comes  down 
here  just  like  this  right  along?  Do  you 
see  him  often? 

Why,  when  I  go  home  and  tell  the  boys 

116 


HOMEBURG'S   WORST   ENEMY 


I  watched  Teddy  Roosevelt  go  down  the 
street  common  as  dirt  and  could  have 
gone  up  in  the  same  elevator  with  him, 
they'll  want  me  to  give  a  lecture  in  the 
Woodmen  Hall.  It  certainly  beats  all 
what  you  can  see  in  New  York  for  nothing. 
That's  where  you  have  all  the  luck, 
Jim  —  you  big  city  folks.  You  keep  your 
interesting  people  at  home;  there's  no- 
where bigger  for  them  to  go.  No  matter 
how  famous  or  successful  they  are,  they 
have  to  stick  around  and  mingle  unless 
they  get  Europitis  of  the  intellect.  When 
you  grow  up  with  a  chum  in  New  York 
and  he  discovers  a  talent  that  has  been 
kicking  around  in  his  garret  ever  since 
he  was  born,  you  don't  lose  him.  He  just 
stays  at  home  and  grows  up  to  fit  the 
town.  But  when  I  want  to  see  my  old 
Homeburg  playmates  who  have  succeeded, 
I  have  to  go  to  New  York  or  Chicago  or 
San  Francisco,  or  some  other  big  place 
where  old  Opportunity  keeps   a  wrecking 

117 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

crew  busy  all  the  time  beating  in  doors. 
Opportunity  doesn't  come  into  a  small 
town  and  knock.  He  stands  outside  and 
beckons. 

Life  in  Homeburg  is  one  long  bereave- 
ment because  of  this  fact.  Seems  as  if 
the  world  was  always  looking  Homeburg 
men  over,  the  way  a  housewife  looks  over 
an  asparagus  patch,  and  yanking  out  the 
ones  who  stick  up  a  little  higher  than  the 
rest.  We  don't  worry  about  the  good  who 
die  young  in  Homeburg;  but  the  interest- 
ing who  go  early  and  forget  to  come  back 
make  us  sad  and  sore.  No  sooner  does 
a  Homeburg  man  begin  to  broaden  out 
and  get  successful  and  to  hoist  the  town 
upward  as  he  climbs  himself,  than  we  be- 
gin to  grieve.  We  know  what  is  coming. 
Presently  he  will  go  down  to  the  Demo- 
crat office  and  insert  a  notice,  advertising 
for  sale  a  seven-room  house  with  gas  and 
water,  good  cistern,  orchard  with  bearing 
trees,   good  barn  and  milch  cow,   cement 

1x8 


HOMEBURG'S   WORST    ENEMY 

walks  and  watertight  cellar.  And  he  will 
sell  that  place  at  a  sacrifice,  which  he  can 
well  afford,  and  go  off  to  the  city,  where 
he  will  learn  to  wear  a  fur-lined  coat,  kick 
about  the  financial  legislation  and  visit 
us  on  Christmas  Day  once  per  decade. 

I  sometimes  wonder  what  Homeburg 
would  be  like  if  all  her  bright  boys  and 
girls  should  come  back.  Don't  suppose 
the  town  could  hold  them  at  all.  It  would 
be  stretched  out  of  shape  in  a  week.  But 
it  would  be  a  glorious  place  to  live  in,  and 
wouldn't  we  shine  in  art  and  music  and 
politics  and  finance  —  to  say  nothing  of 
baseball!  Suppose  we  had  Forrest  Brady 
back  home,  catching  for  the  Homeburg 
team!  He  gets  seven  thousand  dollars  a 
year  from  Boston  now;  but  I  remember 
when  he  helped  put  dents  in  Paynesville 
baseball  pride  for  nothing,  and  would  pay 
some  youngster  a  quarter  to  hustle  bag- 
gage at  the  depot  in  his  absence.  And 
suppose  the  Congregational  choir  still  had 

119 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

Mary  Saunders!  Why,  we  could  charge 
a  dollar  a  seat  for  ordinary  services,  and 
people  would  come  down  from  Chicago 
to  attend!  When  I  think  what  she  gets 
for  one  concert  now,  and  then  think  how 
long  the  Ladies'  Aid  Society  has  been 
working  to  paint  the  church  and  haven't 
made  it  yet,  it  makes  me  wish  we  could 
put  Homeburg  on  wheels  and  haul  it  after 
some  of  our  distinguished  children.  And 
what  if  we  had  Alex  McQuinn  to  write 
up  the  Democrat  again?  Every  month  we 
almost  ruin  ourselves  at  home  buying  all 
the  magazines  he  writes  for;  but  when  he 
was  a  fat  young  thing  in  spectacles  hunt- 
ing locals  and  trying  to  write  funny  things 
for  the  Democrat,  he  wasn't  appreciated 
at  all.  Old  Judge  Hicks,  who  had  no  sense 
of  humor,  chased  him  several  miles  once  for 
telling  how  he  tried  to  stop  the  4:11  train  by 
yelling  "  Whoa  "  at  it.  And  Editor  Ayers 
had  to  fire  Alex  to  keep  the  peace. 

When    Rollin    Derby,    who    draws    pic- 

120 


HOMEBURG'S   WORST    ENEMY 


tures  for  your  New  York  paper,  went  to 
school,  he  could  climb  a  tree  by  digging 
his  bare  toes  into  the  rough  bark,  but  was 
not  otherwise  distinguished.  When  Mau- 
rice Gadby  was  a  boy  in  Homeburg,  he 
went  barefooted  in  summer  with  the  rest 
of  us,  and  who  could  have  guessed  that 
he  would  grow  up  to  give  tango  teas  for 
your  four  hundred  and  only  allow  the 
better  quality  of  them  to  pay  him  twenty- 
five  dollars  per  cup  at  that?  But  the 
career  that  amuses  me  most  is  Jack  Nixon 
—  "  Shinner  "  Nixon,  we  used  to  call  him. 
He  commands  a  battleship  for  a  living 
now;  and  Homeburg  is  exactly  seven  miles 
from  the  nearest  stream  that  is  navigable 
by  a  duck.  We  used  to  walk  out  to  that 
stream  Saturday  mornings,  spend  four 
hours  building  a  dam  and  then  swim  pain- 
fully on  our  elbows  and  knees  in  the  puddle 
we  had  made  until  dark,  but  Shinner 
wouldn't  go  in.  He  was  a  regular  young 
Goethals  when  it  came  to  dam  building, 

121 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

but  he  abhorred  water,  especially  behind 
the  ears. 

Back  of  my  generation  the  batting  aver- 
age was  just  about  as  good.  It  seemed  to 
have  been  the  fashion  of  Homeburg  boys  of 
thirty  years  ago  to  go  out  and  run  Ne- 
braska politically.  Two  governors  and 
a  representative  have  come  from  our  town. 
If  we  had  them  here  now,  we  wouldn't 
have  to  fight  so  desperately  to  get  a  county 
surveyor  or  coroner  on  the  ticket  every 
four  years.  Samuel  P.  Wiggins,  who  now 
lives  in  a  stone  hut  covering  an  acre  in 
Chicago  and  owns  a  flock  of  flour  mills, 
was  once  Sam  Wiggins,  who  bought  grain 
in  our  town  and  married  the  daughter  of 
one  of  our  most  reliable  washerwomen. 
She  comes  back  occasionally  now,  and 
we  can't  see  but  that  she's  as  nice  as  she 
used  to  be  when  she  hauled  our  family 
wash  home  in  a  little  wagon  every  Satur- 
day night.  Being  rich  hasn't  hurt  her 
at    all,  though    it   has    spoiled    her  figure 

122 


HOMEBURG'S   WORST    ENEMY 

beyond  the  utmost  and   most  heartrend- 
ing efforts  of  her  clothes  to  conceal. 

Then  there's  Mrs.  Maysworth.  When 
she  comes  down  from  Chicago  for  a  visit, 
the  old  town  fairly  hums  for  a  month. 
We  pick  up  our  interest  in  art  and  woman's 
suffrage  and  cheap  trips  to  Europe  and 
Dante's  Inferno;  the  Shakespeare  Club 
is  revived,  the  bookstore  sells  its  copy  of 
Browning,  and  the  tone  of  the  afternoon 
teas  goes  up  about  two  hundred  per  cent. 
Mrs.  Maysworth  was  the  ruling  spirit  of 
a  little  bunch  of  prosperous  Homeburg 
people  who  lived  at  the  end  of  Milk  Street 
—  we  used  to  call  it  the  cream  end  of  Milk 
Street.  When  they  were  with  us,  Home- 
burg was  called  the  Athens  of  the  Steenth 
Congressional  District.  We  heard  singers 
and  lecturers,  who  jumped  towns  of  fifty 
thousand  on  either  side  of  us.  We  had 
state  presidents  of  Women's  Federations 
and  Church  Societies.  We  had  a  free 
library  before  Mr.   Carnegie  had  a  bank 

123 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

account.  North  Milk  Street  established 
it,  and  every  Saturday  afternoon  the 
muddy  feet  of  the  tough  south  side  kids 
scuffled  over  Mrs.  Maysworth's  hardwood 
floors,  the  first  west  of  Chicago,  while 
their  owners  drew  out  books,  the  said 
library  being  located  in  an  extinct  con- 
servatory, which  protruded  from  the  house 
like  a  large  wart. 

Homeburg  was  a  Mecca  of  learning 
and  refinement  in  those  days;  and  then 
six  of  these  families  pulled  out  in  the  same 
year  and  moved  to  Chicago,  where  they 
could  soak  up  a  little  more  culture  instead 
of  giving  away  all  they  had.  They  left  a 
chasm  in  our  midst  as  big  as  the  Grand 
Canyon.  It  never  has  been  filled  —  for 
me  at  least.  I  feel,  when  I  wander  up  that 
fine  old  shady  street,  past  those  houses 
filled  with  people  who  are  only  as  wise  as 
I  am,  as  if  I  were  wandering  through  the 
deserted  haunts  of  an  ancient  and  irre- 
placeable civilization. 

124 


HOMEBURG'S    WORST    ENEMY 


That's  the  way  it  goes  with  us  —  one 
bereavement  after  another.  It's  mighty 
hard  to  be  a  mother  of  sons  in  Homeburg. 
I  worked  in  the  post-office  for  a  year  once 
—  handed  out  mail  —  and  I  got  to  know 
just  exactly  what  most  of  the  mothers  in 
town  wanted.  I  could  please  them  with 
a  new  magazine  and  mystify  them  with 
a  circular  or  a  business  letter.  But  if  I 
wanted  to  light  them  up  until  they  took 
the  shadows  out  of  the  corners  as  they 
went  out,  I  would  give  them  a  letter  from 
a  son,  way  off  somewhere,  making  good. 
The  best  of  them  didn't  write  any  too 
often.  Once  a  week  is  pretty  regular,  I 
suppose,  from  the  other  end;  but  you 
should  see  the  mother  begin  to  come  in 
hungry  again  the  second  day  after  her 
letter  came.  And  when  a  boy  came  home 
successful  and  prosperous,  and  his  proud 
mother  towed  him  down  Main  Street  on 
pretense  of  getting  him  to  carry  a  spool 
of  thread  home  for  her,  it  used  to  go  to 

125 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

my  heart  to  see  the  wistful  looks  of  her 
women  friends.  There  is  hardly  a  family 
in  Homeburg  of  the  right  age  which  hasn't 
a  grown-up  son  off  at  war  somewhere  — 
fighting  failure.  It's  grand  when  they 
win;  but  I  hate  to  think  of  some  of  our 
boys  who  haven't  come  back. 

If  it's  hard  on  the  mothers,  it's  even 
harder  on  the  Homeburg  girls.  They  say 
there  are  one  hundred  thousand  old  maids 
in  Massachusetts.  I'll  bet  that's  just 
about  the  number  of  Massachusetts  young 
men  who  have  gone  West  or  somewhere, 
and  haven't  remembered  the  things  they 
said  at  parting  as  well  as  the  girls  did. 
We've  got  plenty  of  girls  in  Homeburg 
who  are  getting  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  thirties  —  fine  girls,  still  pretty, 
bright,  and  keeping  up  with  the  world. 
Young  men  come  into  town  and  do  their 
best  to  get  on  a  "  thou-beside-me  "  foot- 
ing, but  somehow  the  girls  don't  seem  to 
marry.     At  the  root  of  almost  every  case 

126 


HOMEBURG'S   WORST   ENEMY 

there's  an  old  Homeburg  boy.  Maybe 
he's  making  good  somewhere,  and  they're 
both  waiting  until  he  does.  Maybe  he 
isn't  making  good  and  is  too  proud  to  ask 
her  to  wait.  Maybe  she's  waiting  alone  — 
because  some  other  girl  was  handier  in 
the  new  place.  And  maybe  it  wasn't  a 
case  of  wait  at  all,  only  the  boy  who  went 
away  looked  better  to  some  Homeburg 
girl  than  any  of  those  who  stayed  at  home. 
That  was  the  case  with  Sam  Flanburg 
and  Minnie  Briggs  a  few  years  ago. 

Sam  is  on  the  Chicago  Board  of  Trade 
and  is  one  of  our  old-time  boys.  Two 
years  ago  he  came  back,  roaringly  pros- 
perous, to  visit  for  the  first  time  since  he 
had  left,  and  pretty  suddenly  he  discov- 
ered to  his  amazement  that  on  packing  up 
ten  years  before  he'd  left  a  pearl  of  great 
price  behind,  said  pearl  being  Minnie.  In 
other  words  he  fell  in  love  over  his  ears 
with  her,  and  Minnie,  who  was  one  of  our 
very  nicest   girls,   with   a   disposition   like 

127 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

triple  distilled  extract  of  charity,  treated 
him  like  a  dog.  He  stayed  around  for  a 
month  cluttering  up  the  Briggs's  front 
porch  day  and  night,  while  Minnie  put  up 
an  imitation  of  haughty  indifference  and 
careless  frivolity  which  was  as  good  as  a 
show  for  every  one  in  town  except  Sam, 
who  couldn't  see  through  it.  That's  one 
of  our  small  town  assets  —  you  get  to  look 
on  at  most  of  the  love  affairs.  We  watched 
Minnie  and  Sam  with  our  hearts  in  our 
mouths  for  fear  she'd  carry  it  too  far  and 
lose  him,  for  every  one  had  it  straight  from 
Mary  Askinson,  who  is  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  a  close  friend  of  Minnie's 
old  school  chum,  that  Minnie  had  been  in 
love  with  Sam  since  they  graduated  from 
the  high  school  together.  It  was  all  we 
could  do  from  breaking  in  and  interfering, 
especially  when  Sam  went  off  his  feed  and 
began  to  throw  out  ugly  talk  about  going 
to  the  Philippines  or  some  place  where 
fever  can  be  gotten  cheap.    But  one  morn- 

128 


HOMEBURG'S    WORST    ENEMY 

ing  Sam  came  down-town,  and  the  first 
man  who  saw  his  face  called  up  his  wife 
and  told  her  the  good  news.  Talk  about 
extra  editions  for  distributing  news!  Be- 
fore a  city  paper  could  have  gotten  an 
extra  on  the  street,  five  intimate  friends 
of  Minnie's  had  dropped  in  casually  to 
see  her,  and  when  they  saw  her  face,  of 
course  they  fell  on  her  neck.  Sam  told 
Chet  Frazier  next  day  that  it  made  him 
so  mad  to  think  he'd  lived  twenty  years 
in  the  same  town  with  Minnie  and  had 
never  appreciated  his  blessings  that  he 
felt  like  climbing  Pikes  Peak  and  kicking 
himself  ofL 

There's  Mary  Smith.  She's  our  prize 
old  maid  and  dresses  like  a  mail  sack  full 
of  government  seeds,  but  they  say  she 
was  the  prettiest  girl  in  Homeburg  when 
young  Cyrus  McCord  went  to  Chicago  to 
carve  out  his  future  so  that  he  could  come 
home  and  marry  her.  But  Cyrus  didn't 
carve  out  his  future.     He  married   it  in- 

129 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

stead,  and  Mary  is  almost  fifty  now,  living 
alone  and  getting  peculiar,  like  so  many 
of  our  lonely  old  folks  do. 

Taking  it  all  around,  you  can't  blame 
us  for  feeling  a  little  bit  hostile  to  the  big 
grabby  towns  which  reach  out  like  tax  col- 
lectors every  year  and  take  a  tithe  of  our 
boy  and  girl  crop  —  first  choice  too.  But 
of  course  we're  enormously  proud  of  our 
Homeburg  people  who  go  out  and  help 
run  the  world,  and  we  watch  their  careers 
like  hawks.  When  Chester  Arnett  was 
running  for  a  state  office  out  West,  I'll 
bet  twenty  Homeburg  families  subscribed 
for  a  Denver  paper  to  read  about  him; 
and  when  Deacon  White  was  making  his 
great  plunges  in  Wall  Street,  Homeburg 
looked  at  the  financial  page  of  the  Chicago 
papers  first  and  then  read  the  baseball. 
We're  as  happy  over  their  success  as  if 
they  were  our  children  —  but  it's  always 
embarrassing  for  a  little  while  when  a 
Homeburg  man  who  has  made  good  comes 

130 


HOMEBURG'S   WORST    ENEMY 


back  to  visit  in  the  old  town.  We're  ach- 
ing to  rush  up  and  wring  his  arm  off,  but 
we  want  to  know  how  he  feels  about  it 
first.  One  or  two  experiences  have  made 
us  gun-shy.  We  can't  forget  Lyla  En- 
bright,  who  moved  away  with  her  family 
years  ago  and  married  a  national  bank  or 
something  of  the  kind  in  the  East.  She 
didn't  come  home  for  ten  years,  but  finally 
the  father  died  and  Lyla  came  back  to  sell 
off  some  property.  A  lot  of  us  had  made 
mud  pies  with  Lyla,  and  while  she  hadn't 
shown  any  great  genius  in  that  or  any- 
thing else,  she  was  jolly  and  we  liked  her, 
so  we  tried  to  rush  up  and  greet  her  rap- 
turously. 

Those  who  didn't  do  it  say  it  was  one 
of  the  funniest  things  that  ever  happened 
in  Homeburg,  but  I  couldn't  see  it  at  the 
time.  I  was  one  of  the  rushers.  Lyla 
waited  until  my  outstretched  hand  was 
within  reaching  distance,  and  then  she 
pulled  a  lorgnette  on  me.     Say,  Jim,  did 

131 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

you  ever  get  right  squarely  in  range  of 
both  barrels  of  an  hones t-for-God  lor- 
gnette with  about  a  thousand  dollars  worth 
of  dry  goods  and  a  pinch  of  brains  behind 
it?  If  my  turn  ever  comes  to  face  a  Gat- 
ling  gun  I  hope  to  march  right  up  to  it 
like  a  little  man  —  but  lorgnettes  ?  No ! 
Any  hostile  army  could  lick  Homeburg  by 
aiming  lorgnettes  at  it.  I  gave  one  look 
at  the  thing  and  fell  over  myself  in  heaps 
getting  away.  I  wouldn't  speak  to  Sim 
Bone  for  a  week  because  he  laughed.  But 
after  I  had  recovered  a  little,  I  hunted  up 
Chet  Frazier  in  a  hurry  and  told  him  Lyla 
wanted  to  see  him.  By  that  I  got  even 
with  Chet  for  about  a  dozen  practical  jokes. 
When  he  got  in  range  of  that  lorgnette, 
he  said  "Gosh!  "  and  actually  ran.  Then 
we  survivors  lined  up  and  got  some  com- 
fort out  of  it,  watching  the  rest  get  theirs. 
As  I  said,  Lyla  and  one  or  two  others 
who  have  brought  home  their  prosperous 
and  expanded  corporal  beings,  and    noth- 

132 


HOMEBURG'S   WORST   ENEMY 

ing  else  to  speak  of,  have  made  us  a  little 
timid  about  greeting  our  successful  Prods. 
We  hang  around  all  ready  for  action,  but 
we  need  encouragement.  We  wouldn't 
speak  first  for  a  farm.  We  wait  for  some 
calloused  gabbler  to  break  the  ice.  Gibb 
Ogle  usually  does  it.  Gibb  would  act  as 
a  reception  committee  for  the  Angel  Ga- 
briel without  a  quiver.  He's  always  on 
the  street,  anyway,  propping  up  some 
building  or  other,  and  he  is  always  willing 
to  waddle  up  to  a  returned  governor  or 
financier  or  rising  young  business  man, 
and  stick  out  his  unwashed  paw,  while  we 
hold  our  breath  and  wait  for  the  result. 

As  a  rule  it's  cheering.  Our  Homeburg 
boys  don't  fall  down  once  in  twenty  times. 
No  matter  who  the  visitor  is,  he  grabs 
Ogle's  hand  and  yells :  "  Why,  hello, 
Gibb,  you  fat  old  scoundrel,  how's  your 
sore  foot?  "  Then  we  crowd  around  and 
fight  for  the  next  turn,  and  go  home  and 
hastily    spread    the    news    that    So-and-so 

133 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

has  come  home  big  and  prosperous  as  all 
get-out,  and  not  spoiled  a  bit. 

Sometimes  they  don't  come  back  at  all, 
of  course,  and  nervy  scouts  who  look  up 
the  delinquents  in  their  city  offices  come 
back  with  badly  frosted  ears  and  spread 
the  warning.  But  there  are  few  of  these. 
Even  President  Banks  of  the  great  F.  C. 
&  L.  Railroad  System,  who  played  on  the 
Homeburg  baseball  nine  thirty-five  years 
ago,  will  stop  puzzling  over  the  financial 
situation  long  enough  to  give  the  glad 
hand  to  a  Homeburg  man  during  office 
hours.  Of  course  I  don't  mean  that  any 
one  from  Homeburg  can  break  in  on  him 
and  pile  his  desk  full  of  feet.  You  have 
to  be  a  thirty-third  degree  Homeburger 
from  his  standpoint;  that  is,  you  or  your 
father  must  have  stolen  apples  with  him  — 
I  belong  to  the  inner  lodge.  My  father 
and  President  Banks  ate  a  peck  of  peaches 
one  night  in  Frazier's  orchard,  between 
them,  and  got  half  way  through  the  pearly 

134 


HOMEBURG'S   WORST    ENEMY 

gates  before  they  were  yanked  back  by 
two  doctors.  That's  why  Banks  took  me 
to  lunch  when  I  went  to  call  on  him  last 
month.  If  the  Government  would  let 
him,  he'd  give  me  a  pass  home. 

I'll  never  forget  the  day  when  Banks 
came  back  to  Homeburg.  He  hadn't 
been  back  for  thirty  years  and  hadn't  the 
slightest  intention  of  coming  either,  as 
he  admitted  afterward.  But  he  was  going 
through  on  his  special  car,  and  old  Number 
Eleven,  which  was  hauling  him,  performed 
the  most  intelligent  act  of  its  career.  The 
engine  broke  down  right  at  the  depot,  and 
when  Banks  found  he  was  in  for  an  hour 
or  two,  he  got  out  and  strolled  down  Main 
Street  to  see  the  town  in  which  he  had 
begun  his  life. 

It  was  a  most  depressing  occasion.  No 
one  who  had  ever  come  back  had  changed 
as  much  as  Banks.  If  he  had  worn  a  pig- 
tail and  talked  Choctaw,  he  couldn't  have 
grown  farther  away.     It  wasn't  his  fault. 

135 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

He  tried  his  best.  But  he  hadn't  talked 
our  language  for  years.  He  couldn't  get 
down  near  enough  to  converse.  He  passed 
most  of  his  playmates  without  remember- 
ing them,  but  when  he  saw  Pash  Wade's 
sign,  he  went  in  and  shook  hands  with  him. 
About  forty  of  us  came  in  to  trade  and 
watched  him  do  it.  It  was  pathetic.  They 
stood  there  like  strangers  from  different 
lands,  Banks  trying  to  unbutton  his  huge, 
thick  ulster  of  dignity,  and  not  succeeding, 
and  Pash  trying  to  say  something  that 
would  interest  Banks  —  along  the  line  of 
high  finance  of  course  —  state  of  the  coun- 
try, etc.  They  gave  it  up  in  a  minute, 
and  Banks  went  out.  He  found  Pelty 
Amthorne  and  shook  hands  with  him. 
Pelty  is  pretty  loquacious  as  a  rule,  but 
he  couldn't  talk  to  Banks  —  not  that 
Banks,  anyway.  He'd  never  seen  him 
before.  He  said  "  How-dy-do,"  and,  "  It's 
a  long  time  since  you  were  here,':  and 
Banks   said,   "  It   is   indeed.      I   hope  you 

136 


HOMEBURG'S    WORST    ENEMY 

and  your  family  are  well."  And  then 
Pelty  oozed  hastily  back  into  the  crowd 
with  a  relieved  air  as  if  he  had  done  his 
duty,  and  Banks  looked  bored  and  took 
out  his  watch.  But  just  then  Sim  Askin- 
son  came  up  all  out  of  breath  and  burst 
through  the  crowd. 

Sim  is  little  and  meek  and  has  a  hard 
time  holding  his  own,  even  in  our  peaceful 
world.  But  when  he  saw  Banks,  he  snorted 
like  a  war  horse  and  grew  up  three  inches. 

"Hello,  Pudge,  you  old  son-of-a-gun !  " 
he  said,  with  both  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"  Hello,  Sim!  "  said  Banks,  sort  of  start- 
led. 

"  Where'd  you  come  from?"  demanded 
Sim,  "  and  why  ain't  you  come  before? 
You're  a  nice  friendly  cuss,  you  are. 
Sucked  any  turkey  eggs  lately?  " 

"  No,  you  knock-kneed  dishwasher," 
said  Banks  as  a  grin  began  to  edge  its 
way  across  his  face.  "  Have  you  tried  to 
sell  any  more  toads  for  bullfrogs  ?  " 

137 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

"  No,  nor  I  ain't  fought  out  any  bumble- 
bees' nest  since  the  time  you  got  one  up 
your  pant  leg  and  pretty  near  pounded 
yourself  to  death  with  a  ball  bat,"  said 
Sim.  "  Can  you  still  run  as  fast  as  the 
time  Wert  Payley  and  I  dared  you  to  ride 
Malstead's  bull?" 

"Where's  Wert?"  demanded  Banks. 
They  were  shaking  hands  now,  using  all 
four  of  them.  "  Say,  I've  got  to  see  him 
and  Wim.  Horn.  I've  got  to  leave  in  a 
few  minutes." 

"  Like  fun  you  have,'1  growled  Sim, 
linking  arms  with  Banks.  "  You  seem 
to  think  some  one's  chasing  you.  You're 
going  to  stay  all  night,  that's  what  you're 
going  to  do." 

"  I  am  not,"  said  Banks;  "  and  I 
wouldn't  stay  with  you,  anyway.  You 
had  a  garter  snake  in  the  bed  last  time  I 
slept  with  you.  I've  got  to  see  some  more 
of  the  boys,  though." 

"  He  thinks   he's   going  away  in   a  few 

138 


HOMEBURG'S    WORST    ENEMY 

minutes,'1  said  Sim  to  Wert  Payley,  who 
had  heard  his  name  and  was  now  shaking 
hands  with  Banks.  "  Why,  the  old  fat 
snide,  nobody  wants  to  see  him  outside 
of  Homeburg.  He's  going  to  get  a  free 
supper  to-night.  Remember  Sadie  War- 
ren?" 

"  Remember!  "  shouted  Banks.  "  What 
do  you  think  I  am  ?  —  Methuselah  ?  I 
remember  more  things  than  you  ever 
heard  of.  Why,  Sadie  and  I  went  skating 
the  night  you  couldn't  find  your  fat  horse 
and  sleigh." 

"  Ya-a-a —  "  yelled  Payley,  with  a  sud- 
den shriek  of  laughter.  "  Never  knew 
who  took  your  rig,  did  you,  Sim?  " 

"  You  —  you  —  "  said  Sim,  glaring  at 
Banks.  "  You  confounded  horse  thief,  I 
believe  you  took  Sadie  in  my  own  sleigh." 

"  Ain't  he  bright,  Pudge,"  gasped  Pay- 
ley,  "  only  took  him  thirty  years  to  catch 


on. 


iC 


Well,  Banksie,"  said  Sim,  "  Sadie's  been 

139 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

more  particular  about  her  young  men  since 
that  night.  We've  been  married  twenty- 
five  years,  and  I  guess  I'll  let  you  come  up 
and  eat  this  evening,  anyway.  She  lets  me 
bring  most  any  old  pelter  home." 

"  Gosh,  boys,  I  can't." 

"  Say,  what  are  you?  the  porter  on  that 
varnished  car  down  there?  :  demanded 
Sim.    "  Won't  they  let  you  off  a  minute?  " 

"Tell  you  what  we'll  do,"  said  Pelty 
Amthorne.  "  We'll  take  you  to  band 
practice  to-night.  Sim  still  runs  it,  but 
he  won't  let  me  play  any  more." 

"  I  haven't  touched  a  horn  since  I  left 
Homeburg,"  laughed  Banks.  "  But  I'd 
give  ten  dollars  to  see  you  and  Wimble 
Horn  blat  away  on  those  altos  again,  with 
your  eyes  bulging  out  of  your  cheeks.'1 

"  We'll  get  Wimble  and  we'll  break  up 
band  practice  if  you'll  stay  over." 

u  t  ?? 

"  No,  you  don't,"  said  Sim.  "  I  won't 
have  riff-raff  loafing  around  my  band.': 

140 


HOMEBURG'S    WORST    ENEMY 

"  You  won't,  eh?  "  said  Banks.  "  We'll 
show  you.  Come  down  to  the  car  while  I 
send  about  forty  telegrams,  and  then  we'll 
fix  you,  Mister  Askinson." 

Which  they  did  that  night,  while  most 
of  the  town  looked  on.  The  next  fall 
Banks  came  back  and  stayed  three  days, 
and  his  conduct  and  that  of  his  old  com- 
panions in  crime  set  an  example  to  our 
younger  generation  which  didn't  wear  off 
for  years.  They  went  out  orchard  rob- 
bing in  an  automobile,  and  Banks  said  he 
never  realized  before  the  wonder  of  mod- 
ern conveniences. 


141 


VII 

THE  HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

Which  Swamps  the  Post-Office  Every  Friday 

NO,  Jim,  as  I  have  already  said 
about  thirty-four  times  this  week, 
I  don't  care  for  a  paper.  Don't 
buy  one  for  me.  I  could  read  your  New 
York  papers  for  twenty-four  hours  at  a 
stretch,  and  at  the  end  of  the  time  I  would 
have  to  stop  some  good-natured  looking 
chap  and  ask  what  the  news  was.  It's  all 
there,  I  know,  but  I  don't  seem  able  to 
find  it.  Even  the  Chicago  baseball  scores 
are  hidden  in  the  blamed  things.  Instead 
of  putting  them  first,  the  way  they  ought 
to,  they  stick  them  down  at  the  end  of  the 
page.  As  for  the  editorial  pages,  I  might 
as  well  go  to  Labrador  and  hunt  for  per- 

142 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

sonal  friends  as  to  read  them.  If  there's 
anything  that  makes  a  stranger  feel  about 
ten  thousand  miles  from  home,  with  the 
cars  not  running,  it  is  to  get  into  the  edi- 
torial page  of  an  unknown  newspaper  and 
try  to  sit  in  with  the  family  discussions. 
It  makes  me  feel  like  a  man  who  has  gotten 
into  a  reunion  of  the  Old  Settlers'  Associa- 
tion of  Zanzibar  by  mistake. 

It's  not  much  of  a  trick  to  go  into  a 
strange  town  and  learn  to  navigate  from 
hotel  to  hotel,  but  it's  a  hopeless  task  to 
try  to  find  your  way  around  a  strange 
newspaper.  Takes  about  two  years  to 
learn  to  read  a  strange  newspaper  skilfully, 
anyway,  and  find  your  way  through  it 
without  banging  into  the  want  ads  when 
you  want  to  find  the  editorials,  and  trip- 
ping over  the  poets'  column  when  you 
are  hunting  for  the  crop  reports.  You've 
been  buying  a  paper  every  time  you  turned 
a  corner  for  the  last  week,  Jim  —  you 
New  Yorkers  seem  to  have  to  have  a  paper 

H3 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

about  as  often  as  a  whale  needs  a  new 
lungful  of  air  —  and  I've  taken  a  hasty 
look  at  all  of  them,  but  when  I  get  home 
I  am  going  to  ask  my  wife  what  has  hap- 
pened in  the  U.  S.  while  I've  been  away 
from  Homeburg.  Outside  of  the  eternal 
Mexican  case,  I  don't  seem  to  have  dis- 
covered a  thing. 

Mind  you,  I  don't  blame  your  papers 
for  bearing  down  hard  on  the  local  news. 
I  suppose  it's  mighty  interesting  to  you 
New  Yorkers  to  learn  every  morning  just 
how  much  more  money  you  owe  on  your 
new  subway,  and  whether  or  not  the  tem- 
perature of  Mrs.  Van  Damexpense's  sec- 
ond-best Siberian  wolf-hound  is  still  rising. 
That's  what  newspapers  are  for  —  to  save 
you  the  trouble  of  stepping  around  and  col- 
lecting the  events  of  the  day  from  the 
back  fence.  But  your  papers  don't  bear 
down  hard  enough  on  the  Homeburg  hap- 
penings, and  that's  why  they  don't  suit 
me. 

144 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

I  don't  pretend  that  our  Homeburg 
paper  is  the  equal  of  yours  in  any  partic- 
ular. The  best  I  can  say  for  it  is  that  it's 
no  worse  than  it  was  ten  years  ago.  It 
hasn't  any  three-story  type,  and  you  could 
read  it  for  years  without  discovering  who 
was  being  divorced  in  San  Francisco  or 
murdered  in  Chicago.  People  who  depend 
on  it  don't  know  yet  that  war  has  been 
declared  in  the  Balkans,  and  they  won't 
hear  any  more  politics  until  1916.  All 
week  long  I  think  as  little  about  the  paper 
as  all  this.  But  somehow,  when  Thursday 
evening  comes  around,  rain  or  shine,  I 
step  over  to  the  post-office,  and  if  my 
paper  isn't  there,  I  wait  a  few  minutes, 
growing  more  impatient  all  the  time,  and 
then  I  drift  over  to  the  door  of  the  Home- 
burg Weekly  Democrat  office  and  join  the 
silent  throng. 

Like  as  not  I'll  find  twenty  people  there. 
We  don't  expect  any  wild  news.  There 
will  probably  not  be  anything  in  the  Dem- 

.  H5  ■     .    ; 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

ocrat  when  it  comes  out,  but  we  want  to 
make  sure  of  it.  We  don't  want  to  go 
home  without  the  paper.  We've  read  it 
for  twenty  years,  and  every  week  we  open 
it  up  and  poke  through  its  internals  after 
a  sensation  that  will  stand  Homeburg  on 
its  ear  and  split  the  Methodist  church 
from  steeple  to  pipe  organ.  We're  as  pa- 
tient as  fishers  in  the  Seine,  and  the  fact 
that  the  world  has  never  rocked  when  the 
Democrat  did  come  out  doesn't  discourage 
us  any. 

We  want  our  paper,  and  so  we  stand 
there  and  grumble.  Now  and  then  one 
of  us  stumps  up  the  narrow  hallway  to 
the  second  story  where  the  Democrat  makes 
its  lair,  and  looks  on  with  an  abused  air 
while  two  young  lady  compositors  claw 
around  the  bottom  of  the  boxes  for  enough 
type  to  set  the  last  items,  and  the  foreman 
stuffs  the  forms  of  the  last  two  pages  with 
old  boiler  plate,  medicine  ads  and  any- 
thing that  will  fill.    There  isn't  any  reason 

146 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

for  the  Democrat  being  late  any  more  than 
there  is  for  the  branch  accommodation 
train,  which  got  almost  to  town  on  time 
once  and  stood  beyond  the  crossing  for 
twenty  minutes  because  her  conductor 
forgot  just  when  she  was  due  and  didn't 
want  to  run  in  too  soon.  The  Democrat 
is  just  late  naturally.  It's  part  of  its  func- 
tion to  be  late.  Makes  it  more  eagerly 
sought  after.  We  talk  with  the  foreman 
and  make  nuisances  of  ourselves  generally, 
and  presently  old  man  Ayers,  who  runs 
the  paper,  waddles  in  with  another  item 
to  be  set.  The  compositors  set  down  their 
sticks  with  a  jerk  and  say,  "  Oh,  my  land!  " 
and  the  foreman  goes  and  puts  the  item 
on  the  case  with  that  air  of  patient  resig- 
nation which  is  a  little  more  irritating 
than  a  swift  kick;  and  then  Chet  Frazier, 
if  he's  hanging  around,  which  he  usually 
is,  speaks  up: 

"  For   goodness'   sakes,   Ayers,   let   that 
item  go  and  get  to  press,"  he  says.    "  Give 

H7 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

it  to  me  and  I'll  read  it  aloud  down-stairs, 
your  whole  subscription  list's  down  there 
waiting." 

But  we  have  to  wait  just  the  same  until 
the  item  is  set  up.  Then  the  foreman 
locks  up  the  forms  and  bangs  them  on  the 
face  with  his  big  wooden  plane,  and  he 
and  the  old  man  lug  them  out  into  the 
pressroom  while  we  all  hold  our  breath  — 
sometimes  the  form  explodes  on  the  way 
and  then  we  don't  get  the  Democrat  for 
three  days. 

Pretty  soon  we  hear  the  rattle-te-bang- 
te-clank-te-clicketty-clang  of  the  old  press, 
and  in  five  minutes  more  Editor  Ayers 
comes  out  with  an  armful  of  folded  papers 
all  fragrant  with  fresh  black  ink. 

"  She's  out,  boys,"  he  says.  Then  we 
grab  copies  and  hurry  to  spread  the  news 
of  the  birth  of  another  Democrat.  We 
open  the  sheet  and  look  carefully  down 
the  page  where  old  man  Ayers  generally 
conceals  his  local  news.     For  a  minute  or 

148 


CO 


*1 

too 


C/3 


c/3 
O 


3 
O 

CO 

CD 
C/5 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

two  there  is  silence.  Then  somebody 
crams  his  paper  into  his  pocket.  "  Hmph, 
nothing  in  it,"  he  says,  and  starts  home. 
He's  right,  too.  Outside  of  the  fact 
that  it  has  another  week  of  old  man  Ayers's 
laborious  and  worried  life  in  it,  it  is  mighty 
bare.  There  isn't  enough  news  in  it  to 
cause  a  thrill  in  a  sewing  circle.  But  after 
supper  at  home,  when  we  look  it  over 
more  carefully  and  the  first  hot  flush  of 
anticipation  has  worn  off,  we  do  find  a 
lot  of  information.  We  find  that  Miss 
Ollie  Mingle  has  gone  to  Paynesville  for 
a  two  days'  visit  (aha,  that  Paynesville 
young  man's  folks  are  going  to  look  her 
over),  and  that  Mrs.  Ackley  is  visiting 
her  daughter  in  Ogallala,  Neb.  (Unless 
Ackley  straightens  up,  we  don't  expect 
her  back.)  Wimble  Horn  is  erecting  a 
new  porch  and  painting  his  house.  (He 
must  have  beaten  the  bucket  shop  for 
once.)  We  also  find  that  Jedson  Bane's 
peaches  are  ripe  and  of  the  best  quality, 

149 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

which  fact  he  has  just  proven  to  the  edi- 
tor's entire  satisfaction.  And  that  old 
Mrs.  Gastit  is  feeling  very  poorly,  and 
Pete  Parson,  while  working  on  his  auto- 
mobile the  other  night,  contributed  a  fore- 
finger to  the  cause  of  gasoline  by  poking 
around  in  the  cogs  while  the  engine  was 
running. 

All  of  this  is  news  and  interesting  to  us; 
so  is  the  fact  that  Miss  Ri  Hawkes  is  not 
teaching  in  the  Snyder  district  school  this 
week,  because  of  a  sore  toe.  While  this 
item  does  not  jar  the  country  quite  so 
extensively  as  it  would  if  Miss  Hawkes 
belonged  to  one  of  your  leading  New  York 
families,  and  was  employing  an  eleven- 
thousand-dollar  physician  to  treat  her  for 
gout,  it  is  just  as  important  to  Miss  Hawkes. 
And  there  you  have  the  great  keynote  of 
our  Homeburg  journalism.  In  the  eyes 
of  the  Democrat  we  are  all  equal. 

There  are  not  many  of  us  Homeburgers. 
We    will    never    see    twenty-five    hundred 

150 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

again,  for  as  families  grow  smaller,  most 
of  the  Illinois  towns  like  Homeburg  are 
contracting  slowly  in  size  even  while  pros- 
perous. The  Democrat  hasn't  above  seven 
hundred  subscribers,  but  every  one  of  those 
subscribers  gets  his  name  in  the  paper  at 
least  once  a  year,  even  if  it  is  only  a  gen- 
eral mention  of  his  patriotism  when  he 
pays  his  annual  subscription.  No  baby 
born  in  Homeburg  is  too  humble  to  get 
its  exact  weight  heralded  to  the  world 
through  the  Democrat.  Mrs.  Maloney's 
pneumonia  and  Banker  Payley's  quinsy 
grieve  the  town  in  the  same  paragraph 
under  the  heading  "  Among  our  sick." 
The  Widow  Swanson's  ten-mile  trip  down 
the  line  to  a  neighboring  town  gets  as 
careful  attention  as  Mrs.  Singer's  annual 
pilgrimage  to  California.  In  the  matter 
of  news  we  are  a  pure  democracy.  The 
man  who  buys  a  new  automobile  gets  no 
more  space  than  the  member  of  Patrick 
McQuinn's  section  crew  who  scores  a  clean 

I5i 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

scoop  by  digging  his  potatoes  one  week 
ahead  of  the  town.  And  when  the  hum- 
blest of  us  lies  down  in  death  he  does  it 
with  the  serene  consciousness  that  he  will 
get  half  a  column,  anyway,  with  more  if 
his  disease  is  rare  and  interesting,  and  that 
at  the  end  of  the  article  the  city  will  sym- 
pathize with  the  family  in  its  bereavement. 
When  Mrs.  Agnew  died  of  her  broken  hip 
she  got  a  column,  though  she  had  been 
financially  unable  to  take  the  paper  for 
years,  while  in  the  same  issue  Jay  Gould 
got  a  two-inch  obituary  in  its  boiler  plate 
inside. 

Your  big  papers  pride  themselves  on 
their  brevity,  except  in  murder  cases, 
and  I  understand  that  almost  every  New 
York  editor  thinks  he  could  boil  the  story 
of  the  Creation  down  into  less  than  the 
six  hundred  words  which  the  Bible  wasted 
on  it.  But  Editor  Ayers  could  give  all 
your  editors  instructions  in  this  kind  of 
economy.     If  the  Creation  had  happened 

152 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

around  Homeburg  while  he  was  on  the 
job,  he  would  have  called  attention  to  it 
the  next  week  about  as  follows: 

"  We  understand  there  was  a  creation  in 
these  parts  during  the  last  week.  We  did 
not  learn  the  particulars  but  those  who 
were  on  the  ground  at  the  time  say  that 
it  was  a  successful  affair,  and  that  the 
new  world  is  doing  as  well  as  could  be  ex- 
pected under  the  circumstances." 

Ayers  would  write  it  this  way  for  two 
reasons.  In  the  first  place  he  hates  to 
write  more  than  one  paragraph.  Coming 
after  a  hard  day's  work  collecting  bills 
and  chasing  subscribers,  it  is  a  wearing 
effort.  Nothing  gets  much  space  in  the 
Democrat  except  obituaries  and  marriages, 
and  they  are  all  contributed  —  the  former 
by  the  relatives  and  the  latter  by  the  min- 
ister. In  the  second  place,  there  wouldn't 
be  any  use  of  wasting  a  lot  of  space  on  a 
big  item  because  by  the  time  the  Demo- 
crat comes  out,  everybody  knows  all  about 

H53 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

it,  and  the  mere  facts  would  be  stale  and 
unimportant  beside  the  superstructure  of 
soaring  fancy  which  has  been  built  up  by 
the  easy-running  imaginations  of  our  chief 
news  dispensers  on  the  street  corners. 
And  so,  when  the  creamery  burns  down 
or  the  evening  fast  freight  runs  through 
an  accommodation  on  the  crossing,  the 
old  man  puts  his  duty  off  until  the  last 
minute  and  then  writes  a  few  well-chosen 
lines  merely  to  let  us  know  that  he  is  on 
the  job  and  lets  no  news  escape  him.  When 
you  are  running  a  weekly  paper,  your 
competitors  in  the  news  business  are  the 
talkers  in  the  town  who  mingle  seven  days 
a  week  and  issue  a  hundred  thrilling  ex- 
tras to  their  fellow  citizens  before  your 
press  day  comes  around. 

Besides,  as  I  have  said,  old  man  Ayers 
can't  afford  to  waste  much  time  chasing 
news.  He  has  to  get  a  living  for  himself 
as  well  as  for  the  Democrat,  and  keeping 
both  his  family  and  the  paper  alive  is  a  dis- 

154 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

tinct  feat  performed  weekly.  His  pay-roll 
for  a  foreman  and  two  girls  must  amount 
to  over  fifteen  dollars  a  week,  and  that 
means  cold  solid  cash  which  must  be 
wrung  from  a  reluctant  public.  Seems 
to  me  I  never  go  into  a  store  that  I  don't 
see  old  man  Ayers  trying  to  collect  a  little 
cash  on  an  advertising  account  or  wheed- 
ling a  subscriber  into  coming  out  of  the 
misty  past  and  creeping  cautiously  down 
a  few  years  toward  the  present  on  his 
subscription  account.  If  there  is  anything 
which  we  can't  do  without  and  for  which 
we  positively  object  to  paying  real  money, 
it  is  our  home  newspaper.  Sim  Bone  has 
a  roaring  shoe  business  and  pays  cash  for 
his  automobiles,  but  he  has  often  told  me 
that  paying  good  paper  money  for  adver- 
tising would  be  as  wasteful  as  eating  it. 
He  carries  an  ad  in  the  Democrat  all  the 
year  and  changes  it  about  every  six  months. 
It's  July  now,  and  he  is  still  advertising 
bargains  in  overshoes  —  but  he  won't  pay 

155 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

any  money.  Ayers  has  to  trade  the  ac- 
count out,  as  he  has  to  do  with  every  other 
advertiser  in  the  town. 

People  pity  the  poor  ministers'  families 
who  have  to  live  on  the  scrambled  pro- 
ceeds of  donation  parties,  but  an  editor's 
family  in  our  parts  has  even  harder  luck. 
I  have  seen  Ayers  order  two  suits  of  clothes 
from  a  clothier  who  owed  him  a  big  bill 
and  was  getting  wabbly,  and  then  pass  by 
the  meat  market  empty-handed,  because 
his  advertising  account  there  was  traded 
out.  He  told  me  once  that  he  has  taken  disk- 
plows,  flaxseed,  magazines,  encyclopedias 
and  a  new  back  porch  in  trade  for  adverti- 
sing and  subscriptions,  but  that  he  has  been 
wearing  an  obsolete  pair  of  spectacles,  to 
his  great  discomfort,  for  ten  years,  because 
our  local  jeweler  will  not  advertise.  The 
doctors  in  town  carry  cards  in  the  paper 
and  owe  him  large  amounts  because  his 
family  is  too  healthy  to  catch  up  with 
them;  but  it  will  be  two  years  before  either 

156 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

of  our  local  dentists  accumulates  a  big 
enough  bill  to  allow  Mrs.  Ayers  to  have 
some  very  necessary  construction  and  bet- 
terment work,  as  the  railroad  folks  say, 
done  to  her  teeth. 

If  it  weren't  for  the  patent  medicine 
ads,  Ayers  tells  me,  he  wouldn't  be  able 
to  keep  afloat  for  want  of  ready  cash.  He 
says  a  patent  medicine  may  be  an  abomi- 
nation before  the  Lord,  but  that  a  patent 
medicine  advertising  agent  looks  to  him 
like  a  very  present  help  in  time  of  trouble. 
The  agent  comes  in  and  beats  him  down 
until  he  agrees  to  publish  several  hundred 
yards  of  notices  next  to  pure  reading  mat- 
ter on  all  sides  for  fifteen  dollars.  But 
the  fifteen  dollars  is  cash  —  he  doesn't 
have  to  take  the  stuff  in  trade.  And  so 
we  are  forever  running  into  such  thrilling 
headlines  as,  "  Horrible  Wreck,"  "  Her 
escape  was  simply  marvelous,"  "  Worse 
than  the  Titanic  Disaster,"  in  the  Demo- 
crats local  page.     And  then  we  exclaim: 

iS7 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

"  Hurray!  Real  news  at  last,'1  and  prowl 
eagerly  down  the  items  only  to  find  that 
the  horrible  wreck  was  a  citizen  of  Swamp 
Hollow  upon  whom  a  wonderful  cure  was 
effected;  that  "Her  escape"  was  from 
inflammatory  rheumatism  by  the  aid  of 
Gettem's  Dead  Shot  Specific,  and  that 
the  Titanic  Disaster  is  eclipsed  annually 
by  the  sad  ends  of  thousands  of  people 
who  neglect  to  take  Palaver's  Punk  Pills. 
It  always  makes  us  mad,  but  we  can't 
kick.  If  it  weren't  for  the  patent  medicine 
people,  we  would  have  to  pay  for  the  Dem- 
ocrat all  by  ourselves. 

They  say  that  when  Editor  Ayers  first 
came  to  Homeburg  some  forty  years  ago 
he  was  a  bright  young  man  with  a  great 
rush  of  words  from  the  pen,  and  that  he 
had  a  dapper  air  and  was  generally  ad- 
mired. The  Democrat  contained  about  a 
page  of  solid  editorial  opinion  each  week 
on  everything,  from  the  tariff  to  the  duty 
of    Russia,    in    whatever    crisis    was    then 

i58 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

||  |  I  '  ■     —  .---■■-■--.—  .. I  II  I 

pending,  and  people  swore  by  the  paper 
and  didn't  make  up  their  opinions  until 
they  had  read  it.  But  times  have  changed. 
We  don't  stand  in  awe  of  the  Democrat 
any  more.  Most  of  us  laugh  at  it,  even 
those  of  us  who  are  not  financiers  enough 
to  keep  our  subscriptions  called  up.  We 
call  it  the  "  Weekly  Gimlet "  and  the 
"  Poorly  Democrat,"  and  we  make  bright 
remarks  to  old  man  Ayers  when  he  asks 
us  for  news  and  tell  him  that  he  ought  to 
turn  the  paper  inside  out  so  that  we  can 
read  the  boiler  plate  first  and  not  have  to 
wade  through  his  stuff.  But  he  doesn't 
object.  Time  and  toil  and  the  worry  of 
keeping  cash  enough  on  hand  to  pay  the 
expressman  who  dumps  his  ready  prints 
on  the  floor  each  Wednesday  and  refuses 
to  budge  until  he  has  collected  #3.24  have 
taken  the  pepper  out  of  him.  He  doesn't 
write  editorials  any  more  except  on  the 
week  following  a  national  election,  and 
they  are  affairs  of  duty  which  always  be- 

159 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

gin:     "Another    election    has    come    and 
gone  and  the  party  of  Jackson  —  ' 

He  has  made  a  living  for  forty  years 
and  has  sent  two  sons  through  college 
from  the  Democrat,  and  the  effort  has 
taken  the  fight  out  of  him.  I  never  saw 
him  resent  a  joke  but  once.  That  was 
when  Pelty  Amthorne  told  him  that  his 
wife  considered  the  Democrat  to  be  the 
best  paper  she  had  ever  seen.  He  let 
Ayers  burst  a  couple  of  buttons  from  his 
vest  in  his  swelling  pride  before  he  ex- 
plained that  the  Democrat,  when  cut  in 
two,  exactly  fitted  his  wife's  pantry  shelves, 
and  that  she  didn't  have  to  trim  it  a  bit. 
The  old  man  turned  on  his  heel  without 
a  word  and  that  week  he  kindled  his  old- 
time  fires  and  wrote  the  following  for  the 
local  page: 

A  citizen  of  Homeburg  who  hasn't  done 
anything  more  exciting  for  twenty  years 
than  stand  off  his  grocery  bill  poked  fun 

1 60 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

at  the  Democrat  last  week  to  our  face  be- 
cause there  wasn't  any  more  news  in 
it.  News,  say  we  —  News  in  Homeburg? 
News  in  a  town  where  an  ice-cream  social 
is  a  sensation  and  a  dog  fight  suspends 
business  for  three  hours?  News  in  a  town 
where  it  takes  a  couple  five  years  to  work 
up  a  wedding  and  seven  kinds  of  wedding 
cake  is  the  only  news  in  it?  Where  the 
city  marshal  hasn't  made  an  arrest  for 
two  years  because  no  one  has  done  any- 
thing after  nine  p.  m.  except  snore,  and 
where  they  have  to  put  up  the  lamps  in 
pairs  to  keep  them  from  getting  lonesome? 
We  don't  print  news  from  Homeburg  be- 
cause there  isn't  any,  and  the  old  rooster 
who  joshed  us  knows  it.  He's  sore  because 
we  can't  make  half  a  column  out  of  his 
trip  to  Paynesville  eight  miles  away  last 
summer,  but  we'll  promise  to  do  better. 
We'll  dump  the  paste  pot  in  the  fire,  throw 
the  old  shears  out  of  the  window  and  get 
out  a  regular  screamer  of  a  Democrat  some 
week;  a  paper  with  red  ink  on  it  and  big 
headlines  and  a  real  piece  of  news  in  it. 
We  will  when  this   gabby  old  fossil  does 

161 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

his  part.  When  he  pays  his  six  years' 
subscription,  we'll  write  two  columns  about 
it.    And  even  then  no  one  will  believe  it. 


Lafe  Simpson,  who  runs  the  Argus,  is 
a  younger  man  than  Ayers  and  more  am- 
bitious. Oh,  yes,  we  have  two  papers. 
In  a  town  the  size  of  Homeburg  you  simply 
have  to  have  two  papers,  because  half  of 
the  people  are  always  mad  at  one  paper. 
The  Argus  and  Democrat  trade  subscrip- 
tion lists  about  every  seven  years  —  not 
counting  the  hard-shell  Democrats  and 
blown  -  in  -  the  -  bottle  Republicans  who 
have  to  stand  by  their  papers  whether 
they  get  mad  at  them  or  not.  I've  been 
taking  the  Democrat  for  about  five  years 
because  Simpson  got  too  busy  in  the 
school  election  one  year  to  suit  me.  It's 
pretty  hard  on  me,  because  Simpson  runs 
a  better  paper;  but  my  neighbor,  Sim 
Askinson,  likes  the  Democrat  better  and 
can't  take   it  because   he   took   his  whole 

162 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

family  to  Chicago  one  week,  and  Ayers 
overlooked  the  fact.  So  he  borrows  my 
Democrat  every  week  and  I  get  his  Argus, 
and  thus  both  of  us  preserve  our  mad  and 
our  dignity  and  get  what  we  want  just 
the   same. 

If  there's  anything  keener  than  the 
competition  between  two  weekly  news- 
papers in  a  small  town,  I'd  like  to  see  it  — 
but  not  feel  it.  It's  a  searching  sort  of 
competition  which  seems  to  work  its  way 
into  every  detail  of  the  town's  affairs. 
We  town  people  are  judged  by  our  editors 
according  to  our  patronage.  If  a  man 
gives  two  jobs  of  letterheads  in  succession 
to  the  Argus,  Ayers  looks  on  him  as  a  man 
who  has  stabbed  him  in  the  back  and  has 
twisted  the  sword.  If  the  Board  of  Edu- 
cation spends  $6y  for  commencement  in- 
vitations with  the  Democrat  one  year  and 
369.50  with  the  Argus  the  next,  things  aren't 
exactly  calm  and  peaceable  again  until  the 
discrimination    has  been  explained.    When 

163 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

twins  come  to  a  man  who  has  always 
taken  the  Argus  in  preference  to  the  Dem- 
ocrat, old  man  Ayers  wags  his  head  as  if 
to  say,  "  He  brought  it  on  himself; "  and 
when  Lafe  Simpson  meets  a  man  who 
persistently  refuses  to  take  his  paper  in 
preference  to  the  sheet  across  the  street, 
he  greets  him  as  formally  and  warily  as  if 
he  had  smallpox  and  was  passing  free 
samples  around. 

Lafe  claims  to  have  more  circulation 
than  the  Democrat,  and  this  comes  nearer 
giving  Ayers  apoplexy  than  anything  else. 
He  claims  that  Lafe's  circulation  consists 
two  thirds  of  wind  and  that  he  hasn't 
more  than  750  bona  fide  subscribers,  in- 
cluding deadhead  copies  to  patent  medi- 
cine houses.  Lafe,  on  the  other  hand,  says 
Ayers  prints  750  papers  merely  from  force 
of  habit  —  that  most  of  his  subscribers 
have  been  trying  to  stop  the  paper  for 
years  and  can't.  Lafe  says  that  when  a 
man  puts   his   name  on  Ayers's   subscrip- 

164 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

tion  list,  he  might  as  well  carve  it  in  stone 
and  then  try  to  wipe  it  off  with  gasoline. 
Ayers  says,  in  return,  that  when  a  stranger 
arrives  to  make  his  home  in  Homeburg, 
Lafe  Simpson  meets  him  at  the  train, 
takes  him  to  his  new  residence,  and  hangs 
around  the  doorstep  until  the  stranger 
subscribes  for  the  Argus  in  order  to  im- 
prove the  atmosphere  around  the  neigh- 
borhood. 

Of  course  the  two  papers  are  always 
on  opposite  political  sides  —  no  matter 
whether  it  is  a  school  or  national  election. 
Makes  us  scheme  a  good  deal  at  times  to 
keep  one  of  them  quiet  on  some  public 
project  so  that  the  other  will  not  jump 
on  it.  We  had  a  big  time,  when  the  plan 
to  pave  Main  Street  was  going  through, 
to  keep  Lafe  from  jumping  in  and  shout- 
ing for  it.  That  would  have  set  Ayers  off 
dead  against  it,  and  we  had  to  muzzle 
Lafe  until  Ayers   had   committed  himself. 

The  struggles  of  the  two  editors  to  outdo 

165 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 


each  other  have  been  titanic.  When  Simp- 
son put  in  a  steam  engine,  Ayers  mort- 
gaged his  plant  and  got  one  of  the  new 
gasoline  engines  just  then  being  introduced 
into  an  unhappy  world.  He  never  used 
it  much  unless  he  had  lots  of  time  in  which 
to  start  it,  but  it  was  a  great  comfort 
and  held  Simpson  level.  When  Simpson 
bought  the  building  in  which  the  Argus 
is  printed,  it  nearly  killed  Ayers,  who 
couldn't  have  bought  the  sign  on  his  build- 
ing. But  he  finally  prevailed  on  the  owner 
to  put  in  a  new  front  and  name  his  block 
"  The  Democrat  Building."  But  about 
that  time  Simpson,  who  is  a  go-ahead 
young  chap,  bought  a  young  automobile 
in  the  last  stage  of  lung  trouble,  and  Ayers 
has  never  really  recovered  from  that  blow. 
The  two  papers  go  to  press  on  the  same 
day,  and  the  rivalry  is  intense.  Early  in 
the  day  the  two  foremen  each  visit  the 
rival  plants,  ostensibly  to  borrow  some 
type  and  a  little  gasoline,  but  in   reality 

1 66 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

to  count  the  advertisements  and  to  see 
how  late  the  rival  sheet  is  going  to  be. 
All  afternoon  the  forces  work  feverishly, 
reports  drifting  in  occasionally  to  the 
effect  that  over  in  the  other  shop  they  are 
locking  up  the  forms.  The  minute  the 
press  turns  in  the  Democrat  office,  Ayers 
grabs  the  first  paper,  folds  it  and  saunters 
hastily  over  toward  the  Argus,  Some- 
times he  meets  Simpson  half  way  over 
with  a  copy  of  the  Argus  in  his  pocket, 
and  sometimes  he  gets  clear  over  and  has 
a  chance  to  swell  around  for  a  minute 
with  his  new-born  paper  in  plain  sight, 
watching  the  mad  foreman  lock  up  the 
forms.  The  first  paper  into  the  post-office 
gets  distributed  first,  while  the  subscribers 
of  the  other  paper  hang  around  in  a  state 
of  frenzy  and  waver  in  their  allegiance  in 
a  manner  to  make  the  stoutest  heart  quail. 
And  one  of  the  weekly  diversions  in  Home- 
burg  is  watching  this  race.  If  it  isn't  too 
late  in  starting,  we  hang  around  and  make 

167 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

mild  bets  on  the  result.  One  week  old 
man  Ayers  and  his  foreman  will  hurry  out 
from  the  Democrat  office  and  trot  hastily 
over  to  the  post-office  carrying  the  week's 
issue  of  the  paper  between  them  in  a  wash 
basket.  And  the  next  week  Simpson  and 
the  office  devil  will  beat  them  to  it.  Now 
and  then  they  will  both  appear  at  the 
same  time  and  race  side  by  side,  bare- 
headed, coatless,  breathless,  and  full  of 
hate.  I  hear  a  good  deal  about  the  exer- 
tions to  which  your  papers  go  to  be  on  the 
street  first  with  extras,  but  I'll  bet  there 
has  never  been  more  voltage  in  the  com- 
petition here  than  there  was  in  Homeburg 
the  night  old  man  Ayers  and  young  Simp- 
son arrived  at  the  post-office  door  at  pre- 
cisely the  same  second  and  got  their  bas- 
kets and  themselves  in  a  hopeless  jam. 
Postmaster  Flint  had  to  appoint  a  peace 
conference  to  settle  the  dispute. 

Ayers  is  getting  pretty  old,  and  for  sev- 
eral years  we  have  been  worrying  about 

1 68 


HOMEBURG  WEEKLY  DEMOCRAT 

his  future.  Since  a  cruel  Government  has 
decided  that  a  newspaper  publisher  must 
keep  his  subscription  list  paid  up  or  go 
out  of  business,  times  have  been  pretty 
hard  for  Ayers;  formerly  he  could  let  a 
subscription  account  run  for  ten  years 
and  then  take  a  second-hand  buggy  or  a 
quarter  of  beef,  or  a  few  odd  size  grind- 
stones on  account;  but  of  late  he  has  had 
to  dun  us  every  year,  and  of  course  that 
makes  us  mad,  and  we  quit  his  paper  with 
great  frequency  and  vim.  I  don't  know 
what  would  have  happened  to  the  old 
man  if  Wilson  hadn't  been  elected.  But 
that,  of  course,  has  settled  things  for  him. 
He  will  be  our  next  postmaster.  Every 
one  has  conceded  that  except  Pash  Wade, 
Emery  Billings,  Colonel  Ackley,  and  Sim 
Askinson,  who  are  also  candidates.  How- 
ever, old  man  Ayers's  petition  is  as  long 
as  all  the  rest  put  together,  and  when  he 
is  appointed  and  begins  to  draw  down 
fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year  for  handing 

169 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

out  his  own  paper  to  his  subscribers,  we 
will  sigh  with  relief,  and  Simpson's  yells 
will  be  sweet  music  in  our  ears. 

If  I  had  my  way,  I  would  put  a  clause 
in  the  Constitution  giving  all  third-class 
postmasterships  to  third-class  editors, 
anyway.  It's  the  only  chance  they  have 
of  accumulating  enough  of  a  surplus  to 
be  able  to  go  into  a  store  with  their  hats 
on  one  side  and  buy  things  like  other  peo- 
ple. 


170 


VIII 

THE    HOMEBURG   MARINE    BAND 

Where  Music  is  Cherished  j or  its  own  Sweet 
Sake  Regardless  of  Dividends 

WHERE  you  New  Yorkers  get  far- 
thest ahead  of  us  Homeburgers, 
Jim,  is  the  fact  that  you  can  go 
out  and  soak  yourself  in  real,  soul-hoisting 
music  whenever  you  feel  like  it  —  provided, 
of  course,  that  you  have  the  price  and 
that  some  speculator  hasn't  cornered  the 
tickets,  and  that  you  can  get  home  at 
night  in  time  to  get  dressed  in  time  to 
go  back  to  town,  and  that  you  have  suffi- 
cient nerve  and  endurance  to  go  four 
rounds  with  your  celebrated  subway  in 
the  same  twenty-four  hours. 

You    can't    realize   what    having    music 

171 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

constantly  on  tap  means  to  a  pilgrim  from 
a  town  where  two  concerts  in  a  winter  is 
a  gorge,  and  where  about  the  only  regular 
musical  diversion  is  going  to  church  on 
Sunday  morning  and  betting  on  where 
the  veteran  soprano  in  the  choir  is  going 
to  hang  on  to  the  key  or  skid  on  the  high 
turns.  You  laugh  at  me  because  I  can't 
eat  down-town  unless  I  am  encouraged 
by  a  bull  fiddle,  and  because  I  gulp  at 
free  concert  tickets  like  a  young  robin 
swallowing  worms.  But  if  most  of  your 
life  had  been  spent  listening  to  Mrs.  Sim 
Estabrook  jumping  for  middle  C  about  as 
successfully  as  a  dog  jumps  for  a  squir- 
rel in  a  hickory  tree,  you'd  splash  around 
in  melody,  too,  while  you  had  the  chance. 
Of  course,  I  don't  mean  to  say  that  the 
music  canneries  don't  do  as  big  a  business 
out  our  way  as  they  do  anywhere.  I'll 
bet  they  ship  as  much  as  ten  barrels  of 
assorted  masterpieces  a  month  into  Home- 
burg    for    our    graphophone    cranks;    and 

172 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

last  winter  Wimble  Horn  broke  the  piano- 
player  record  by  tramping  out  Tannhauser 
in  seven  minutes  flat.  But  while  these 
things  educate  us  and  enable  us  to  roll 
our  eyes  in  the  right  place  in  a  Wagner 
number,  they  don't  satisfy  the  soul  any 
more  than  souvenir  cards  from  Europe 
take  away  a  thirst  for  travel.  We  want 
the  real  thing,  and  year  in  and  out  we're 
music-hungry.  We  drive  our  young  folks 
to  the  piano  and  listen  to  them  heroically 
until  they  get  good,  and  then  they  go 
away  to  the  city  where  the  gate  receipts 
are  better  and  leave  us  at  Lutie  Briggs's 
mercy  again.  Time  and  time  again  the 
only  thing  that  has  stood  between  Home- 
burg  and  a  ghastly  musical  silence  has 
been  the  Homeburg  Marine  Band. 

That's  right!  Laugh,  darn  you!  What 
if  Homeburg  is  twenty  miles  from  the 
nearest  creek?  Our  band  is  a  lot  nearer 
salt  water  than  your  Cafe  de  Paris  is  to 
France.      And,    besides,    there    are    only 

173 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

three  names  for  a  country  band,  anyway. 
If  it  isn't  the  Marine  Band,  it  has  to  be 
the  Military  Band,  or  the  Silver  Cornet 
Band.  Chet  Frazier,  who  is  our  village 
cut-up,  says  that  they  named  ours  the 
Marine  Band  years  ago,  after  it  had  waded 
out  to  the  cemetery  on  a  wet  Memorial 
Day  through  our  celebrated  bottomless 
roads. 

You  can't  realize  what  a  comfort  and 
pride  a  band  is  in  a  Class  X  town,  unless 
you  have  grown  up  in  one.  They  say 
this  isn't  a  musical  country,  but  its  inten- 
tions are  certainly  good  as  far  as  brass 
bands  go.  Long  before  an  American  town 
is  big  enough  to  have  a  post-office,  its 
citizens  have  either  organized  a  brass 
#band  or  are  trying  to  get  another  man 
to  move  in  to  complete  a  quorum.  Life 
never  gets  so  complicated  out  on  the  grain 
elevator  circuit  that  the  station  agent, 
school  principal,  and  the  two  rival  black- 
smiths,   and    the    city    marshal    can't    lug 

174 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

their  horns  down-town  once  a  week  in 
the  evening  and  soar  sweetly  off  into  mel- 
ody at  band  practice  —  that  is,  if  they  can 
get  off  on  the  same  beat  during  the  evening. 
I  can  hear  our  home  band  now  —  up 
over  McMuggins'  Drug  Store  on  a  sum- 
mer evening.  It's  hot  —  not  hot  enough 
to  ignite  the  woodwork,  but  plenty  warm 
enough  to  fry  eggs  on  the  sidewalks  — 
and  the  whole  town  is  out  on  the  porches 
and  lawns  chasing  a  breeze,  except  the 
band.  It  is  up  in  the  super-heated  lodge 
room  of  the  Modern  Woodmen,  huddled 
around  two  oil  lamps,  because  the  less 
light  it  has  the  less  heat  will  be  generated, 
and  it  is  getting  ready  to  practice  the 
"  Washington  Post  March  "  for  the  Fourth 
of  July  parade.  Our  band  has  practiced 
the  "  Washington  Post  March  "  for  over 
twenty  years,  but  while  the  band  has 
altered  greatly,  the  grand  old  piece  shows 
no  sign  of  wear  and  is  as  fresh  and  uncon- 
querable as  ever. 

175 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 


Querulous,  complaining  sounds  come 
from  the  lodge  room.  The  tenor  horns 
are  crooning,  and  the  bass  horn  blatting 
gently,  while  the  clarionet  players  are 
chasing  each  other  up  and  down  the  scale, 
like  squirrels  running  round  and  round  in 
a  cage.  The  warming-up  exercises  are  on. 
They  will  continue  until  Frank  Sundell 
shaves  his  last  customer  and  gets  up  to 
the  hall  with  his  trombone.  You  can  tell 
when  he  comes.  He  pulls  the  slide  in  and 
out  a  couple  of  times  with  an  unearthly 
chromatic  grunt,  and  then  there  is  a  deep, 
pregnant  silence.    They  are  going  to  begin. 

Usually  they  begin  several  times.  It 
is  as  hard  to  get  a  band  off  together  in 
practice  as  it  is  to  send  a  dozen  horses 
from  the  wire.  But  finally  the  bass  catches 
up  with  the  cornets,  and  the  others  sprint 
or  put  on  the  brakes,  and  they  land  on 
the  fourth  or  fifth  beat  together. 

For  a  few  minutes  it's  great.  They  go 
over  the  first  four  bars  in  a  bunch,  and 

176 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

old  Dobbs  gets  the  half  note  and  change 
of  key  in  the  bass,  which  usually  floors 
him,  like  a  professional.  It  is  a  proud 
and  happy  moment  for  the  leader.  But 
it  doesn't  last.  It's  too  good  to  be  true. 
Ad  Smith  strikes  a  falsetto  with  his  cornet 
and  stops  for  wind;  this  rattles  his  partner, 
who  can't  carry  the  air  alone  to  save  him. 
Dobbs  sits  down  on  the  wrong  key  in  the 
bass.  The  tenors  weaken,  discouraged 
by  the  cornet,  and  everybody  hesitates. 
A  couple  of  clarionets  lose  the  place  and 
get  to  wandering  around  at  random,  crea- 
ting terrible  havoc.  The  altos  stop,  being 
in  doubt.  Ad  recovers  and  launches  out 
with  terrific  vim  half  a  beat  behind.  There 
is  a  rally,  but  it  is  too  late.  You  can  hear 
fragments  of  five  different  keys,  and  pres- 
ently every  one  stops  except  Mahlon 
Brown,  who  plays  the  bass  drum  and  al- 
ways bangs  away  through  fire  or  water 
until  some  one  turns  him  off. 

Then  there  is  silence  —  a  good  deal  of 

177 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 


it.  We  all  know  what  is  happening.  Sim 
Askinson,  the  leader,  is  making  a  few 
well-chosen  remarks,  and  each  player  is 
turning  around  in  his  chair  and  going  over 
the  faults  of  his  neighbor  in  the  most  kindly 
and  thorough  fashion.  Ed  Smith  empties 
out  his  baritone  horn  and  takes  a  little 
practice  run,  and  then  they  commence  to 
begin  —  or  begin  to  start  —  or  start  to 
commence  —  whatever  it  is,  all  over  again. 
But  when  they  stop  at  ten  o'clock,  they 
haven't  played  the  "  Washington  Post 
March  5    clear  through  in  any  one  heat. 

Doesn't  sound  encouraging  for  the 
Fourth,  does  it?  But,  pshaw,  that's  only 
practice!  When  the  big  day  comes  and 
the  boys  put  on  their  caps  and  coats  and 
such  trousers  as  will  come  nearest  to  blend- 
ing with  the  said  coats  and  march  down 
the  street,  do  they  falter  and  blow  up  in 
the  back  stretch?  Not  much.  They  can- 
ter through  that  air  as  if  they  had  been 
born    whistling    it.      There's    a    wonderful 

178 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

inspiration  in  marching  to  a  band  man  — 
give  him  a  horn,  a  ragged  slip  of  music, 
and  about  four  miles  of  road,  and  he  will 
prance  down  the  street,  climbing  over 
ruts,  wading  through  mud,  reading  at 
night  by  the  light  of  a  torch  carried  by 
a  boy  who  is  twenty  feet  away  fighting 
with  another  boy;  and  he  will  blow  his  im- 
mortal soul  into  his  horn  for  hours  at  a 
stretch  without  missing  a  note. 

Part  of  the  reason  for  the  difference  at 
home  is  because  we  always  carry  a  few 
amateurs,  who  are  privileged  to  come  in 
at  practice  and  do  all  the  damage  they 
can,  but  who  have  to  keep  mighty  quiet 
on  the  march.  They  can  carry  their  horns, 
puff  out  their  cheeks  and  look  as  grand 
as  they  please,  but  if  they'd  presume  to 
cut  loose  with  some  real  notes  and  smear 
up  a  piece,  they'd  be  fired  in  no  time. 

We  have  always  been  mighty  proud  of 
our  Homeburg  band.  Nobody  knows  how 
old  it  isl     We  think  it  arrived  with  the 

179 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

first  inhabitants.  These  are  all  dead,  but 
some  of  the  original  horns  are  still  doing 
duty,  and  the  brass  on  them  is  worn  thin 
and  almost  bright.  Our  band  is  much 
better  than  the  average  band.  That's 
one  of  the  great  Homeburg  comforts. 
Whenever  we  get  blue  about  the  muddy 
streets  and  the  small  stores,  and  the  great 
need  of  a  sewage  system,  and  the  disgrace- 
ful condition  of  the  stove  in  the  Q.  B.  &  C. 
Depot,  we  think  of  our  band  and  are  com- 
forted. It  has  at  least  twenty  members 
right  along,  most  of  whom  can  play  their 
instruments,  and  Sim  Askinson,  who  is 
a  professional  music  teacher,  has  conducted 
it  off  and  on  for  twenty-five  years.  Citi- 
zens from  other  towns  get  mighty  jealous 
when  they  come  down  to  Homeburg  Thurs- 
day evenings  during  the  summer  and  listen 
to  the  magnificent  concerts  which  our 
band  gives.  I've  seen  as  many  as  three 
hundred  rigs  around  the  public  square 
those  nights.     And  when  our  band  prac- 

180 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

tices  up  on  "  Poet  and  Peasant,"  which 
is  its  star  piece,  and  goes  off  to  the  big 
band  contests  which  break  loose  in  the 
summer  and  create  great  havoc,  large 
numbers  of  our  citizens  go  along  and  bet 
their  good  money  in  a  manner  which  keeps 
the  town  poor  for  months  afterward. 

I  don't  know  anything  more  magnifi- 
cent than  the  way  our  band  plays  "  Poet 
and  Peasant  "  with  Sim  Askinson  leading, 
Ad  Smith  and  Henry  Aultmeyer  duetting 
perfectly  for  once  with  their  cornets,  and 
the  clarionet  section  eating  up  the  fast 
parts  in  a  manner  that  sends  goose  flesh 
up  and  down  your  spine.  We're  head  and 
shoulders  above  any  other  band  that  en- 
ters the  contests,  but  that's  the  trouble. 
The  judges  are  never  educated  up  to 
"  Poet  and  Peasant."  They  always  give 
the  prize  to  the  Paynesville  Military  Band, 
which  has  a  five-foot  painted  bass  drum 
and  has  to  play  "  Over  the  Waves  "  for 
a  concert  piece,  because  they  haven't  got 

181 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

a  decent  cornet  player  in  town.  Some- 
time they  will  get  a  real  musician  to  judge 
these  contests,  and  then  we  will  win  by 
seventeen  toots. 

You  may  not  believe  it,  Jim,  but  I  am 
an  alumnus  of  the  Homeburg  band.  Didn't 
suspect  that  I  was  anything  but  an  or- 
dinary citizen,  did  you?  But  it's  a  fact. 
I  am  a  band  man.  I'm  too  modest  to 
brag  about  it,  but  I  was  carrying  a  horn 
and  had  a  uniform  before  I  was  eighteen. 
I  suppose  there  is  nothing,  not  even  the 
fire  department,  that  fills  a  small  town 
boy  with  such  wild  ambition  as  a  band. 
When  I  was  twelve,  I  used  to  watch  that 
band  in  its  more  sublime  passages,  feeling 
that  if  I  ever  could  become  great  enough 
to  play  in  it,  others  could  run  the  country 
and  win  its  great  battles  with  no  jealousy 
from  me.  The  snare  drummer  at  that 
time  was  a  boy  of  sixteen.  Of  course, 
being  snare  drummer  in  the  band,  he 
didn't  mix  around  much  with  the  common 

182 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

kids,  and  I  didn't  know  him.  But  I 
watched  him  until  my  ribs  swelled  out 
and  cracked  with  envy;  and  I  used  to 
wonder  how  fortune  ever  happened  to 
reach  down  and  yank  that  particular  boy 
so  far  up  into  the  rarefied  upper  regions 
of  glory. 

When  I  was  fourteen,  I  went  after  his 
job.  But  I  never  could  learn  to  play  the 
snare  drum.  You  have  to  learn  to  "  roll," 
and  I  couldn't  make  my  left  hand  behave. 
I  tried  a  year  and  would  probably  be  try- 
ing yet  but  for  the  fact  that  when  Ed 
Norton  left  town,  he  traded  me  his  ruin- 
ous old  alto  horn  for  three  dollars  and  a 
dog.  There  was  about  as  much  music 
left  in  it  as  there  is  in  a  fish  horn,  but  I 
was  as  delighted  as  if  it  had  been  a  pipe 
organ,  and  when  the  folks  wouldn't  let 
me  practice  at  home  on  it,  I  took  it  out 
in  the  country  and  kept  it  in  Smily  Gar- 
rett's barn.  After  a  while  I  learned  how 
to  fit  my  face  into  the  mouthpiece  in  just 

183 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 


the  right  way,  and  as  the  sounds  I  made 
became  more  human,  I  sort  of  edged  into 
town,  until  finally  I  was  practicing  in  our 
own  barn.  And  the  next  year  Askinson 
let  me  come  into  the  band  and  "  pad  5 
as  second  alto  during  the  less  important 
engagements. 

I  played  with  the  band  for  five  years, 
and  while  I  never  got  out  of  the  "  thump 
section,"  which  was  what  the  trombonists 
and  snare  drummers  and  the  other  aristo- 
crats of  the  band  call  the  altos,  I  had  all 
the  fun  and  adventures  that  a  high-priced 
musician  could  have  had,  and  was  per- 
fectly happy.  I  can  still  remember  with 
pride  the  deep-green  looks  on  the  faces 
of  Pete  Amthorne  and  Billy  Madigan 
and  Snoozer  Ackley,  as  they  watched  me 
marching  grandly  down  the  street  lugging 
my  precious  old  three  bushels  of  brass  in 
my  arms,  and  "  ump-umping '  until  my 
eyes  stuck  out  of  my  head.  Of  course 
they  didn't  know  that  most  of  the  time 

184 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

I  was  watching  a  change  in  my  notes  half 
a  bar  away  and  wondering  if  I  could  make 
it  without  falling  all  over  the  treble  clef. 
I  looked  like  Sousa  to  them,  and  when  I 
leaned  grandly  back  in  my  chair  at  the 
band  concerts  and  borrowed  a  page  of 
music  from  my  neighbor  —  said  page  be- 
ing mostly  Hebrew  to  me  —  I  felt  like  a 
Senator  or  Chief  Justice  letting  the  com- 
mon herd  have  a  look  at  him. 

I  pity  the  poor  city  boys  who  have  to 
grow  up  nowadays  and  depend  on  taxi- 
cabs  and  vaudeville  for  their  excitement. 
Belonging  to  the  band  was  more  fun  than 
belonging  to  the  baseball  team  or  the 
torchlight  brigade  or  anything  else.  We 
got  in  on  everything.  They  couldn't  pull 
off  a  rally  or  celebration,  or  even  a  really 
successful  church  social,  without  us.  I 
might  say  that  the  importance  of  a  Home- 
burg  citizen  in  the  old  days  was  deter- 
mined by  whether  or  not  the  Homeburg 
Band   escorted   him   to   his   tomb.     When 

185 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

great  doings  occurred  in  the  neighboring 
towns,  plain  citizens  dug  down  in  their 
pockets  for  car-fare,  and  then  dug  pain- 
fully down  once  more  for  our  car-fare. 
When  an  ordinary  Homeburger  wanted 
to  help  boost  McKinley  to  victory  by 
parading  in  some  distant  town  with  a 
torch,  it  cost  him  five  dollars  and  a  suit 
of  clothes.  But  we  not  only  went  free, 
but  got  two  dollars  apiece  for  plowing  a 
wide  furrow  of  glory  down  the  streets 
between  rows  of  admiring  eyes. 

Those  two  dollars  counted  a  lot  in  those 
days,  too.  It  looked  like  an  easy  income 
to  us.  All  we  had  to  do  to  earn  it  was  to 
beg  off  from  our  employers  for  half  a  day, 
travel  thirty  miles  or  so  by  train,  usually 
standing  up  and  protecting  our  horns 
from  the  careless  mob,  march  eight  or  ten 
miles  over  unknown  streets,  picking  out 
dry  places  underfoot  and  notes  from  a 
piece  of  music  bobbing  up  and  down  in 
the   shadows   above  our  horns,    and   then 

1 86 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

drive  home  across  country  after  midnight, 
getting  home  in  time  to  go  to  work  in  the 
morning.  Why,  it  was  just  like  rinding 
money;  I've  never  had  so  much  fun  earn- 
ing it  since.  I  started  once  to  figure  out 
how  many  miles  our  band  marched  dur- 
ing the  first  Bryan  campaign,  but  I  gave 
it  up.  We  never  felt  it  at  that  time,  but 
it  made  me  so  tired  counting  that  I  quit 
with  a  distinct  footsore  feeling. 

The  most  worrisome  task  about  a  Home- 
burg  band  was  keeping  it  alive.  I  sup- 
pose all  small  town  bands  have  the  same 
trials.  We  worked  against  incredible  diffi- 
culties. If  city  people  had  the  same  de- 
votion to  music  which  we  displayed,  you 
would  have  a  ten-thousand  -  piece  phil- 
harmonic orchestra  in  New  York  playing 
twenty-four  hours  a  day  for  glory.  We 
were  always  building  up  our  band  with 
infinite  pains,  only  to  have  Fate  jerk  the 
gizzard  out  of  it  just  as  perfection  was  in 
sight.     Talent  was  scarce,   and  the  rude, 

187 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

heartless  city  was  forever  reaching  down 
into  Homeburg  and  yanking  some  indis- 
pensable players  away.  Of  course  there 
was  always  a  waiting  list  of  youngsters 
who  would  coax  a  few  hoarse  toots  out  of 
the  alto  horn,  and  we  always  had  a  bunch 
of  kid  clarionetists  who  would  sail  along 
grandly  through  the  soft  parts  and  then 
blow  goose  notes  whenever  they  hit  the 
solo  part.  But  try  as  we  would,  we  could 
never  get  more  than  two  cornets.  One 
of  these  was  Ad  Smith.  He  was  a  bum 
cornetist,  but  his  brother  Ed  was  a  good 
baritone,  and  we  had  to  have  both  or  none. 
The  other  was  usually  some  anxious  young 
student  who  got  along  pretty  well  on 
plain  work,  but  who  would  come  down 
the  chromatic  run  in  the  "  Chicago  Trib- 
une March  "  like  a  fat  man  falling  down 
the  cellar  stairs  with  an  oleander  plant. 

As  for  trombones,  there  was  a  positive 
fatality  among  them;  we  were  always 
losing  them.     Trombone  players  have  to 

188 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

be  born,  anyway,  and  there  was  no  hope 
of  developing  one.  Besides,  the  neighbors 
wouldn't  allow  it.  Young  Henry  Wood 
showed  promise  once,  but  after  his  father 
had  listened  to  him  for  about  six  months, 
he  took  the  slip  end  of  his  horn  away  from 
him  and  beat  carpets  with  it,  until  it  was 
extinct  as  far  as  melody  was  concerned. 

For  a  year  we  had  Mason  Peters,  who 
was  a  wonder  on  the  slide  trombone.  But 
he  was  only  getting  twelve  dollars  a  week 
in  Snyder's  Shoe  Emporium,  and  Paynes- 
ville,  which  never  tired  of  putting  up  dirty 
tricks  on  us,  hustled  around  and  got  him 
an  eighteen  dollar  job  up  there  —  after 
which  they  came  down  to  Homeburg  at 
the  first  opportunity  with  their  band  to 
parade  Peters  before  our  eyes.  It  would 
have  been  a  grand  success  if  they  hadn't 
put  Peters  in  the  front  row.  He  lived 
for  his  art,  Peters  did,  paying  no  atten- 
tion to  anything  but  his  trombone,  and 
besides  he  was  quite  deaf.     He  got  con- 

189 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

fused  about  the  line  of  march,  and  when 
the  band  swung  around  the  public  square 
he  kept  right  on  up  Main  Street  all  alone, 
playing  in  magnificent  form  and  solitary- 
grandeur  while  the  band  swung  off  the 
other  way.  The  whole  town  followed  him 
with  tears  of  joy,  and  he  traveled  two 
blocks  before  he  became  aware  of  the  vast 
and  appalling  silence  behind  him;  then 
he  kept  right  on  for  the  city  limits  on  the 
run.  It  was  a  great  comfort  to  us,  and 
by  the  time  we  had  gotten  through  apolo- 
gizing to  the  Paynesville  boys  for  follow- 
ing Peters  under  the  impression  that  he 
was  the  real  band,  they  had  offered  to 
fight  us  singly  or  in  platoons. 

We  used  to  watch  every  new  citizen 
like  Russian  detectives,  only  we  searched 
them  for  horns  instead  of  dynamite.  Sev- 
eral times  a  trombonist  came  to  town, 
and  music  revived  noticeably.  But  none 
of  them  lasted.  Trombonists  seem  to  be 
temperamental,    and    when    they    are    not 

190 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

changing  jobs  they  are  resigning  from 
the  band  because  they  are  not  allowed  to 
play  enough  solos.  Our  greatest  bonanza 
was  a  quiet  chap  named  Williams,  who 
came  to  town  to  work  in  the  moulding 
room  of  the  plow  factory.  After  he  had 
been  there  a  week,  we  discovered  that  he 
had  a  saxophone.  No  one  had  ever  heard 
or  eaten  a  saxophone,  but  we* -looked  it 
up,  and  when  we  found  out  what  it  was, 
we  made  a  rush  for  him.  At  the  next 
practice  he  appeared  with  a  bright  silver 
instrument  covered  with  two  bushels  of 
keys  and  played  a  solo  which  sounded 
like  three  clarionets  with  the  croup.  We 
wept  for  joy  and  elected  him  leader  on 
the  spot. 

This  caused  Sim  Askinson  to  resign, 
of  course,  and  he  took  Ad  and  Ed  Smith 
with  him,  and  they  remained  in  dignified 
and  awful  silence  for  two  years.  But  we 
didn't  care.  One  saxophone  was  worth 
five    baritones,    and    while    Williams    was 

191 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

in  town,  we  were  an  object  of  envy  to  all 
of  the  other  bands  around.  We  changed 
our  name  to  the  Homeburg  Saxophone 
Band,  and  the  way  we  rubbed  it  into 
Paynesville  was  pitiful.  He  was  a  little 
fellow,  Williams  was,  and  short  of  wind, 
which  caused  him  to  gasp  a  good  deal 
during  the  variation  parts.  But  he  was 
willing.  There  was  no  shirk  about  him. 
After  a  year  our  program  usually  con- 
sisted of  eleven  saxophone  solos  and  some 
other  piece  which  could  be  done  almost 
entirely  on  the  saxophone,  and  the  jealous 
Paynesvillains  used  to  ask  why  we  used 
nineteen  men  to  play  the  rests  when  one 
man  could  have  produced  as  much  silence 
at  far  less  expense. 

Those  were  glorious  years;  but  of  course 
they  didn't  last.  Williams  got  to  resign- 
ing at  the  foundry  just  for  the  pleasure 
of  having  us  come  down  and  plead  with 
the  proprietor  to  raise  his  pay.  Finally 
he  resigned   so  much   that  the  proprietor 

192 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

fired  rim,  and  then  we  had  to  take  our 
caps  in  hand  and  wheedle  the  Smiths  and 
Askinson  back  into  the  band.  I  haven't 
belonged  for  years,  but  they  are  still  there. 
When  I  drop  in  at  practice,  as  many  of 
the  alumni  do,  Askinson  greets  me  cor- 
dially and  takes  some  young  cub's  horn 
away  from  him,  so  I  can  sit  in.  It  is  just 
like  old  times,  especially  when  Ed  Smith 
lays  down  his  horn  after  a  slight  alterca- 
tion with  some  one  and  goes  home  never 
to  come  back  —  just  as  he  has  done  for 
the  last  thirty  years. 

That's  the  worst  of  music.  One's  art, 
you  know,  has  so  much  influence  over 
one's  temper.  To  see  our  band  soaring 
majestically  down  Main  Street  and  play- 
ing "  Canton  Halifax  "  in  one  great  throb- 
bing rough-house  of  melody  you  would 
never  believe  that  anything  but  brotherly 
love  existed  between  the  players.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  we  never  wasted  any  har- 
mony among  ourselves.     We  didn't  have 

193 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

any  to  spare.  It  took  all  we  had  to  pro- 
duce the  music.  For  twenty-five  years 
the  Smiths  and  Cooney  Simpson,  who 
plays  first  clarionet,  have  been  at  swords' 
points,  each  with  a  faction  behind  him. 
Cooney  says  it's  a  shame  that  a  good  band 
must  limp  along  with  a  cornetist  who  al- 
ways takes  three  strikes  to  hit  a  high  note, 
and  Ed  Smith  says  Cooney  wants  to  be 
leader  and  will  not  be  satisfied  until  he 
can  play  the  solo  and  bass  parts  at  once 
on  his  clarionet.  I  can  see  Ed  Smith  now, 
after  th.3  band  has  run  aground  in  prac- 
tice, taking  his  horn  down  and  glaring 
around  at  Cooney. 

"  What  you  gobstick  players  need  is  a 
time-table,"  says  he,  "  instead  of  notes. 
Come  in  on  the  A  about  eight-fifteen.  If  you 
can  do  that  well,  we'll  try  to  struggle  along." 

"  Don't  get  forte,"  Cooney  replies 
cheerfully.  "  If  you'd  try  to  follow  both 
those  cornets  instead  of  rambling  along 
by  yourself,  you'd  split,  sure." 

194 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

"  Better  play  cornet,  too,  Cooney," 
says  Ad  Smith,  whirling  around.  "  You've 
got  enough  mouth  for  both." 

"  Well,  we  ought  to  have  a  cornetist," 
says  Cooney,  "  it's  what  we've  needed 
for  years." 

This  riles  the  scrub  cornet  player,  who- 
ever he  happens  to  be,  and  he  gets  up  ex- 
citedly. "  We'd  get  along  a  lot  better 
without  one  or  two  human  calliopes  —  " 
he  begins. 


u 


Set  down,  set  down,'1  says  old  Dobbs 
from  the  coils  of  his  tuba.  "  Let  'em  fight. 
They  know  it  all  between  pieces  —  " 

"  Who  asked  you  to  horn  in?  "  says  Ed 
Smith,  getting  up  preparatory  to  going 
home  with  his  baritone  horn  and  leaving 
a  broken  and  forlorn  world  to  grieve  his 
loss. 

Of  course  this  is  a  crisis.  But  we  never 
bust  up.  The  Paynesville  Band  busts  up 
about  twice  a  year  over  the  division  of 
profits  and  the  color  of  their  new  uniforms 

m 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

and  the  old  question  of  whether  the  cornets 
or  trombones  shall  march  in  front.  But 
we  never  go  entirely  to  pieces.  This  is 
largely  because  of  Sam  Green.  He  is  our 
peacemaker  and  most  faithful  player.  He 
has  played  second  alto  in  the  band  for 
thirty-five  years  without  a  promotion, 
and  is  by  all  odds  the  worst  player  I  ever 
saw,  being  only  entirely  at  home  in  the 
key  of  C;  and  he  can't  play  three-four 
time  to  save  his  soul.  But  his  devotion 
is  marvelous.  He  is  always  the  first  man 
down  to  practice.  He  lights  the  lamps, 
builds  the  fires,  and  when  necessary  goes 
out  to  Ed  Smith's  home  and  persuades 
him  to  come  back  into  the  band  for  just 
this  night.  And  whenever  the  dispute 
between  the  factions  gets  to  the  point 
where  Ed  Smith  begins  gathering  up  his 
doll  things,  Sam  interferes. 

"  Come  on  now,  boys,"  he  pleads, 
"  we've  got  to  get  this  piece  worked  up. 
You're  all  good  players.     Why,  if  Paynes- 

196 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

ville  had  you  fellows,  she'd  have  a  band. 
That  was  my  fault  that  time.  I'll  get 
this  here  thing  right  sometime.  I'll  sit 
out  in  the  trio  now  and  you  fellows  take 
it." 

And  pretty  soon,  as  he  argues,  Ed's 
proud  heart  softens,  and  he  comes  back 
with  a  glare  at  Cooney.  Then  Sim  Askin- 
son  raps  on  his  music  rack  and  says:  "  Gen- 
tlemen and  trombone  players,"  as  he  has 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century;  and  a  minute 
later  the  band  is  tumbling  eagerly  through 
its  piece  once  more,  all  feuds  suspended 
in  the  desperate  effort  to  come  out  even 
at  the  end  with  no  surplus  bars  to  be 
played  by  some  floundering  horn. 

Some  time  during  the  evening,  as  a 
rule,  the  various  sections  get  together  on 
some  passage  and  swim  grandly  through, 
every  horn  in  perfect  time,  and  the  parts 
blending  like  Mocha  and  Java.  All  differ- 
ences are  forgotten,  and  the  band  breaks 
up   with   friendly   words,    Ed    Smith    and 

197 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

Cooney  going  home  together.  Music  has 
charms  to  soothe  the  savage  beast,  and 
it  also  has  a  wonderful  power  of  taking 
the  temper  out  of  the  grocer  and  the 
painter  and  the  mahout  of  the  water- 
work's  gasoline  engine. 

I  never  stepped  so  high  or  felt  so  grand 
as  I  did  the  first  time  I  marched  out  with 
the  boys  and  went  down  the  ^treet  in  the 
back  row  of  the  band  next  to  the  drums, 
a  member  in  good  standing,  and  dodging 
every  time  I  passed  under  a  telephone 
wire  to  keep  from  scraping  my  cap  off. 
I  never  expect  to  feel  that  grand  again. 
But  I  have  an  ambition.  If  ever  I  should 
become  so  famous  and  successful  that 
when  I  went  back  to  Homeburg  to  visit 
my  proud  and  happy  parents  and  stepped 
off  of  the  4:11  train,  I  would  find  the 
Homeburg  Marine  Band  there  to  meet  me, 
I  would  know  that  I  had  made  good, 
and  I  would  be  content.  The  only  thing 
that    encourages    me    in    my    ambition    is 

198 


HOMEBURG    MARINE   BAND 

that  the  band  didn't  come  down  to  play 
when  I  went  away.  Do  you  know,  Jim, 
it's  the  funniest  thing  —  the  fellows  we 
played  out-of-town  in  a  blaze  of  glory 
never  happened  to  be  the  chaps  we  came 
down  to  the  train  to  meet  afterward,  some- 
how. But  I  imagine  we  weren't  the  only 
poor  guessers  in  the  world. 


199 


IX 

THE    AUTO    GAME    IN    HOMEBURG 

It  has  Driven  out  Politics  as  a  Subject  of 

Debate 

WAIT  a  minute,  Jim.  I  want  to 
look  at  this  automobile.  .  .  . 
Yes,  I  know  it  is  the  sixth  ma- 
chine I've  walked  around  in  seven  blocks, 
but  what's  time  to  a  New  Yorker  on  Sat- 
urday afternoon?  This  nifty  little  mile- 
eater  has  an  electric  gear  shift,  and  I  want 
to  ask  the  chauffeur  how  he  likes  it.  Prom- 
ised Ad  Summers  I  would. 

.  .  .  Says  it  hangs  a  little  if  his  voltage 
is  low.  That's  what  I'd  be  afraid  of  — 
Gee!  there's  a  new  Jacksnipe  with  a  center 
searchlight.  Never  would  do  for  rutty 
roads.  How  do  you  like  the  wire  wheels, 
Jim?    Bad  for  side  strains,  I  should  think. 

200 


THE   AUTO    GAME 


Look  at  those  foxy  inset  lamps.  Listen 
to  that  engine  purr  —  two  cycle,  I'll  bet. 
Say,  Fifth  Avenue  is  certainly  one  great 
street!  I  could  walk  up  and  down  here 
for  a  month.  There's  a  new  Battleax  — 
wonder  if  those  two  speed  differentials 
are  going  to  work  out. 

All  right,  Jim,  I'll  reluctantly  shut  up 
and  focus  my  attention  on  the  salmon- 
colored  cloaks  and  green  stockings  for  a 
while.  I  forgot  that  you  don't  take  any 
deep,  abiding  interest  in  automobiles.  All 
they  mean  to  you  is  something  to  ride  in, 
but  to  me  they're  as  interesting  as  a  new 
magazine.  I've  spent  about  four  days 
in  the  sales-rooms  since  I've  been  here, 
and  when  I  get  home  I'll  be  the  center 
of  breathless  attention  until  I've  passed 
around  all  the  information  I've  dug  up. 
I  could  go  back  without  any  information 
about  the  new  shows,  or  the  city  cam- 
paign, but  if  I  were  to  come  back  without 
a  bale  of  automobile  gossip,   I'd  be  fired 

201 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

for  gross  incompetency  from  the  League 
of  Amateur  Advisers  at  Gayley's  garage. 

You  thought  I  said  I  didn't  own  a  ma- 
chine? I  did  say  it  and  I  can  prove  it. 
But  do  you  suppose  that  makes  any  differ- 
ence in  Homeburg?  Here  the  other  fel- 
low's car  is  his  own  business.  But  in 
Homeburg  an  automobile  is  every  one's 
business.  It's  like  the  weekly  newspaper, 
or  the  new  minister,  or  the  latest  wedding 
—  it's  common  property.  Since  gasoline 
has  been  domesticated  we're  all  enthu- 
siasts, whether  we  are  customers  or  not. 
The  man  who  can't  talk  automobile  is  as 
lonely  as  the  chap  who  can't  play  golf  at 
a  country  club.  About  all  there  is  left 
for  him  to  do  is  to  hunt  up  Postmaster 
Flint  and  talk  politics.  Flint  has  to  talk 
all  our  politics;  it's  what  he's  paid  for, 
but  it's  mighty  hard  on  him  because  he 
just  bought  a  new  machine  last  spring 
himself. 

No,    you    guessed    wrong,    Jim.      Auto- 

202 


THE    AUTO    GAME 


mobiles  aren't  a  curiosity  in  Homeburg. 
How  many  are  there  in  New  York?  Say 
eighty  thousand.  One  for  every  sixty 
people.  Homeburg  has  twenty-five  hun- 
dred people  and  one  hundred  machines, 
counting  Sim  Askinson's  old  one-lunger 
and  Red  Nolan's  refined  corn  sheller, 
which  he  built  out  of  the  bone-yard  back 
of  Gayley's  garage.  That's  one  for  every 
twenty-five  people.  Figure  that  out.  It 
only  gives  each  auto  five  members  of  the 
family  and  twenty  citizens  to  haul  around. 
We're  about  up  to  the  limit.  Of  course 
another  one  hundred  people  could  buy 
machines,  I  suppose;  but  that  would  only 
allow  twelve  and  a  half  passengers,  ad- 
mirers, guests,  and  advisers  for  each  car. 
That  isn't  anywhere  near  enough.  Why, 
it  wouldn't  be  worth  while  owning  a  ma- 
chine! As  it  is,  we  are  all  busy.  I've 
ridden  in  twenty  new  machines  this  year 
and  passed  my  opinion  on  them.  It  has 
taken  a  good  deal  of  my  spare  time.     I've 

203 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

thought  sometimes  of  buying  one  myself, 
but  I  don't  believe  it  would  be  right.  If 
I  had  a  car  myself,  I  would  have  to  neg- 
lect all  the  others.  It  wouldn't  do.  Be- 
sides, I  like  to  be  peculiar. 

Is  every  one  in  Homeburg  a  millionaire? 
Goodness,  no!  Our  brag  is  that  we  have 
less  people  per  automobile  than  any  other 
town,  but  then  that's  the  ordinary  brag 
with  an  Illinois  small  town.  We're  not 
much  ahead  of  the  others.  Automobiles 
don't  stand  for  riches  out  our  way.  Blamed 
if  I  know  what  they  do  represent.  Me- 
chanical ingenuity,  I  guess.  Country 
town  people  pick  up  automobiles  as  easily 
as  poor  people  do  twins.  And  they  seem 
to  support  them  about  as  inexpensively. 
If  you  were  to  take  a  trip  around  Home- 
burg at  seven  a.  m.  on  a  Sunday  morning, 
you  would  find  about  eighty-seven  auto- 
mobile owners  out  in  the  back  yard  over, 
under,  or  wrapped  around  their  machines. 

In  the  city  you  can  only  tell  a  car  owner 

204 


THE   AUTO    GAME 


these  days  by  his  silk  socks;  but  in  the 
country  town  the  grimy  hand  is  still  the 
badge  of  the  order.  The  automobile  owner 
does  his  own  work,  like  his  wife,  and  on 
Sunday  morning,  instead  of  hustling  for 
the  golf  links,  he  inserts  himself  into  his 
overalls  and  spends  a  couple  of  hours  try- 
ing to  persuade  the  carbureter  to  use  more 
air  and  less  gasoline.  The  interest  our 
automobile  owners  take  in  the  internals 
of  their  cars  is  intense.  That  is  the  only 
thing  which  mars  the  pleasure  of  the  pro- 
fessional guest,  such  as  myself.  More 
than  once  I've  sat  in  the  sun  twenty  miles 
from  home  while  some  host  of  mine  has 
taken  his  engine  down  clear  to  the  bed 
plate,  just  because  he  had  the  time  to  do 
it  and  wanted  to  see  how  the  bearings 
were  standing  up. 

I've  lived  in  Homeburg  all  my  life,  but 
I  haven't  yet  solved  the  mystery  of  how 
some  of  our  citizens  own  machines.  It's 
a  bigger  mystery  than  yours  because  our 

205 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

automobile  owners  pay  their  bills,  and 
the  mortgage  records  don't  tell  us  any- 
thing. There's  Wilcox,  the  telegraph  oper- 
ator. He  makes  seventy-five  dollars  a 
month.  He  works  nights  to  earn  it,  and 
he  spends  his  days  driving  around  the 
country  in  his  runabout.  He's  thirty 
years  old,  and  I  think  he  invested  in  an 
auto  instead  of  a  wife. 

You  can  get  a  good  meal  in  our  local 
restaurant  for  twenty-five  cents,  and  when 
some  painstaking  plutocrat  comes  in  and 
tries  to  spend  a  dollar  there,  he  has  to  be 
removed  by  kindly  hands  in  a  state  of 
fatal  distension  before  the  job  is  finished. 
A  thousand  dollars  would  buy  stock,  fix- 
tures, and  good  will.  But  a  thousand 
wouldn't  buy  the  restaurant  owner's  auto- 
mobile. He  began  with  two  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars'  worth  of  rubbish  and  a  mon- 
key wrench  four  years  ago,  and  has  pot- 
tered and  tinkered  and  traded  and  pro- 
gressed until  he  now  owns   a  last  year's 

206 


THE   AUTO    GAME 


model,   staggering  under   labor-saving   de- 
vices. 

Our  oculist,  who  does  business  in  a  tiny 
corner  in  a  shoe-store  and  never  over- 
charged any  one  in  his  life,  was  our  pioneer 
automobile  owner.  He  bought  a  home- 
made machine  and  a  mule  at  the  same 
time,  and  by  judiciously  combining  the 
two  he  got  a  good  deal  of  mileage  out  of 
both.  He  would  work  all  morning  getting 
the  automobile  down-town  and  all  after- 
noon getting  the  mule  to  haul  it  back. 
He  has  had  three  machines  since  then, 
and  the  one  he  owns  now  is  only  third- 
hand. 

For  years  Mrs.  Strawn  washed  clothes 
for  the  town  from  morning  till  night,  two 
washings  a  day  and  all  garments  returned 
intact.  Her  boys  used  to  call  at  our  house 
for  the  wash  with  a  wheelbarrow.  They 
come  in  an  automobile  now.  She  bought 
it.  It  was  a  hopeless  invalid  at  the  time, 
but  they  nursed  it  back  to  health,  and  I 

207 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

hear  that  next  spring  they  are  going  to 
trade  it  in  for  a  new  machine.  .  .  .  Why- 
do  I  say  machine?  Because  that's  what 
an  automobile  is  out  our  way.  It's  a  ma- 
chine, and  we  treat  it  as  such.  Most  of 
our  people  couldn't  take  a  lobster  to  pieces 
to  save  their  lives,  but  you  ought  to  see 
them  go  through  the  shell  of  an  auto. 
Too  many  Americans  buy  portable  par- 
lors with  sixty-seven  coats  of  varnish, 
and  are  then  shocked  and  grieved  to  dis- 
cover when  too  late  that  said  parlors  have 
gizzards  just  like  any  other  automobile 
and  that  they  should  have  been  looked 
after. 

I  said  there  were  one  hundred  auto- 
mobiles in  Homeburg.  I  was  mistaken. 
There  are  ninety-nine  automobiles  and 
one  car.  The  Payleys  own  the  car.  They 
bought  it  in  New  York,  paid  six  thousand 
dollars  for  it,  with  a  chauffeur  thrown  in 
to  drive  them  home,  and  they  have  been 
under  his  thumb  ever  since.     He  was  the 

208 


THE   AUTO   GAME 


only  chauffeur  who  had  ever  been  brought 
alive  in  captivity  to  Homeburg,  and  the 
whole  town  inspected  him  with  the  ut- 
most care.  He  was  the  best  stationary 
chauffeur  I  ever  saw.  He  seemed  to  re- 
gard that  car  as  a  monument  and  was 
shocked  at  the  idea  of  moving  it  around 
from  place  to  place. 

It  was  too  high-priced  a  car  to  be 
touched  by  Sam  Gayley,  our  local  auto 
doc,  and  somehow  the  chauffeur  never 
seemed  to  be  able  to  keep  it  in  running 
order  long  enough  to  get  up  to  the  Payley 
residence  and  take  the  family  out.  He 
ran  around  the  country  a  good  deal,  how- 
ever, tuning  it  up  and  trying  it  out,  and 
as  he  was  a  sociable  cuss,  some  of  us  always 
went  with  him.  In  fact,  about  every  one 
rode  in  the  Payley  car  that  summer  except 
the  Payleys.  Wert  Payley  used  to  stop 
me  and  ask  if  I  could  fix  it  up  to  take  him 
along  sometime  when  I  went  riding  with 
his  chauffeur,  but  I  never  would  risk  it. 

209 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

Besides,  it  would  be  imposing  on  the  boy's 
generosity  to  lug  a  friend  along  when  you 
went  riding. 

The  most  of  our  machines  vary  from 
the  one  thousand,  five  hundred  dollar 
touring  car  to  the  five  hundred  dollar 
little  fellows;  and  since  they  have  come, 
life  in  Homeburg  is  twice  as  interesting. 
They  are  our  dissipation,  our  excitement, 
our  amusement,  and  the  focus  of  our  town 
pride.  The  Checker  Club  disbanded  last 
winter  because  the  members  got  to  quar- 
reling over  self-starters,  and  I  understand 
that  in  the  Women's  Missionary  Societies 
and  the  afternoon  clubs  the  comparative 
riding  qualities  of  the  various  tonneaus 
about  the  city  have  about  driven  out 
teething  and  styles  as  a  subject  of  debate. 
For  a  while  during  the  Wilson  campaign, 
it  looked  as  if  politics  was  going  to  get  a 
foothold  in  the  town,  but  some  enthusiast 
organized  a  flying  squadron  of  automo- 
biles to  propagate  Democratic  gospel,  and 

210 


THE   AUTO   GAME 


then  it  was  all  off.  Everybody  rushed 
into  the  squadron,  and  the  trips  around 
the  district  became  reliability  runs,  with 
a  lone  orator  addressing  the  freeborn  citi- 
zens upon  the  tariff  at  each  stop,  and 
said  freeborn  citizens  discussing  magnetos, 
springs,  and  tires  with  great  earnestness 
and  vehemence  during  the  speech. 

Business  always  suspends  for  half  a  day 
whenever  a  new  automobile  comes  to 
town.  There  may  be  a  dozen  of  the  same 
make  already,  but  that  doesn't  make  any 
difference.  We  are  experts,  trained  to 
notice  the  finer  shades  of  perfection,  and 
until  we  have  seen  each  new  machine  put 
up  the  clay  hill  four  miles  south  of  town 
and  have  ridden  in  it  over  the  Q.  B.  &  C. 
crossing  and  the  other  places  which  show 
up  bad  springs,  we  can't  fix  our  minds  on 
our  work.  Time  was  when  a  new  baby 
could  come  into  Homeburg  and  hold  the 
attention  of  the  town  for  a  week.  Now  a 
baby  is  lucky  if  its  birth  notice  isn't  crowded 

211 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

out  of  the  Democrat  to  make  room  for  the 
list  of  new  machines. 

As  for  those  of  us  who  haven't  auto- 
mobiles, life  is  pleasant  and  without  re- 
sponsibilities. We  ride  in  every  new  auto- 
mobile, and,  what  is  more,  we  go  over  it 
as  carefully  as  a  farmer  does  a  new  horse. 
We  open  its  hood  and  pry  into  its  internal 
economy.  We  crank  it  to  test  its  com- 
pression —  half  the  Homeburg  men  who 
have  achieved  broken  wrists  by  the  crank 
route  haven't  autos  at  all.  We  denounce 
the  owner's  judgment  on  oils  and  take 
his  machine  violently  away  from  him  in 
order  to  prove  that  it  will  pull  better  up- 
hill with  the  spark  retarded.  At  night, 
during  the  summer,  we  hurry  through 
supper  and  then  go  out  on  the  front  porch 
to  wait  for  a  chance  to  act  as  ballast. 

No  automobile  owner  in  the  dirt  roads 
belt  will  go  out  without  a  full  tonneau  if 
he  can  help  it  —  makes  riding  easier  — 
and    this    means    permanent    employment 

212 


THE   AUTO   GAME 


during  the  evenings  for  about  three  hun- 
dred friends  all  summer  long.  In  fact 
the  demand  for  ballast  is  often  greater 
than  the  supply.  As  a  result,  we  have 
become  hideously  spoiled.  I  have  passed 
up  as  many  as  six  automobiles  in  an  eve- 
ning on  various  captious  pretexts,  wait- 
ing all  the  time  for  Sim  Bone's  car,  whose 
tonneau  is  long  and  exactly  fits  my  legs. 
Once  or  twice  Sim  has  failed  to  come 
around  after  I  have  waved  the  rest  of  the 
procession  by,  and  we  have  had  to  stay 
at  home.  I  have  spoken  to  him  severely 
about  this,  and  he  is  more  careful  now. 

Because  of  our  great  interest  in  auto- 
mobiles, vicarious  or  otherwise,  there  is 
no  class-hatred  in  Homeburg.  If  a  man 
were  to  stop  by  the  roadside  and  begin  to 
denounce  the  automobile  as  an  oppressor 
of  the  pedestrian,  he  would  in  all  prob- 
ability be  kidnaped  by  some  acquaintance 
before  he  was  half  through  and  carried 
forty    miles    away    for    company's    sake. 

213 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

About  the  only  Homeburg  resident  who 
doesn't  ride  is  old  Auntie  Morley,  who 
broke  her  leg  in  a  bobsled  sixty  years  ago  and 
has  had  a  holy  horror  of  speed  ever  since. 

In  fact  the  only  classes  we  have  are  the 
privileged  class  who  merely  ride  in  auto- 
mobiles and  the  oppressed  class  who  ride 
and  have  to  pay  for  them,  too.  Lately 
the  latter  class  has  begun  to  feel  itself 
abused  and  has  been  grumbling  a  little, 
but  we  overlook  it.  No  appeal  to  preju- 
dice and  jealousy  can  move  us.  Of  course, 
I  don't  think  that  an  automobile  owner 
should  be  expected  to  leave  his  wife  at 
home  in  order  to  accommodate  his  neigh- 
bors, and  there  may  be  some  just  com- 
plaint when  an  owner  is  called  up  late  at 
night  and  asked  to  haul  friends  home 
from  a  party  to  which  he  hasn't  been  in- 
vited. But  on  the  whole  the  automobile 
owners  are  very  well  treated.  Suppose 
we  spectators  should  band  together  and 
refuse  to  ride  in  the  things  or  talk  about 

214 


THE    AUTO    GAME 


them!    The  market  would  be  glutted  with 
second-hand  cars  in  a  month. 

We  have  no  trouble  with  the  speed 
limit  in  Homeburg  either.  This  may  be 
due  partly  to  our  good  sense,  but  it  is 
mostly  due  to  our  peculiar  crossings. 
Homeburg  is  paved  with  rich  black  dirt, 
and  in  order  to  keep  the  populace  out  of 
the  bosom  of  the  soil  in  the  muddy  sea- 
sons, the  brick  crossings  are  built  high 
and  solid,  forming  a  series  of  impregnable 
"  thank-ye-marms  "  all  over  the  town. 
One  of  our  great  diversions  during  the 
tourist  season  is  to  watch  the  reckless 
strangers  from  some  other  State  dash 
madly  into  town  at  forty  miles  an  hour 
and  hit  the  crossing  at  the  head  of  Main 
Street.  There  is  a  crash  and  a  scream  as 
the  occupants  of  the  tonneau  soar  gracefully 
into  the  top.  There  is  another  crash  and 
more  screams  at  the  other  side  of  the  street, 
and  before  the  driver  has  diagnosed  the  case, 
he  has  hit  the  Exchange  Street  crossing, 

2iS 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

which  sticks  out  like  the  Reef  of  Norman's 
Woe.  When  he  has  landed  on  the  other  side 
of  this  crossing,  he  slows  down  and  goes 
meekly  out  of  town  at  ten  miles  an  hour, 
while  we  saunter  forth  and  pick  up  small 
objects  of  value  such  as  wrenches,  luncheon 
baskets,  hairpins,  hats,  and  passengers. 

Last  summer  we  picked  up  an  oldish 
man  who  had  been  thrown  out  of  an  un- 
usually jambangsome  touring  car.  He 
had  been  traveling  in  the  tonneau  alone, 
and  even  before  he  met  our  town  he  had 
not  been  enjoying  himself.  The  driver 
and  his  accomplice  had  not  noticed  their 
loss,  and  when  we  had  brushed  off  and 
restored  the  old  gentleman,  he  said 
"Thank  God!"  and  went  firmly  over  to 
the  depot,  where  he  took  the  next  train 
for  home,  leaving  no  word  behind  in  case 
his  friends  should  return  —  which  they 
did  that  afternoon  and  searched  mourn- 
fully at  a  snail's  pace  for  over  twenty 
miles  on  both  sides  of  our  town. 

216 


THE   AUTO   GAME 


Since  the  automobile  has  begun  to  rage 
in  our  midst,  the  garage  is  the  center  of 
our  city  life.  The  machine  owners  stop 
each  day  for  lubricating  oil  and  news  and 
conversation;  the  non-owners  stroll  over 
to  inspect  the  visiting  cars  and  give  advice 
when  necessary;  and  the  loafers  have 
abandoned  the  implement  store,  Emer- 
son's restaurant,  and  the  back  of  Mc- 
Muggins'  drug  store  in  favor  of  the  garage, 
because  they  find  about  seven  times  as 
much  there  to  talk  about.  The  city  ga- 
rage can't  compare  with  ours  for  adven- 
ture and  news.  I  have  spent  a  few  hours 
in  your  most  prominent  car-nurseries  and 
I  haven't  heard  anything  but  profanity 
on  the  part  of  the  owners  and  Broadway 
talk  among  the  chauffeurs. 

In  the  country  it's  different.  Take  a 
busy  day  at  Gayley's,  for  instance.  It 
usually  opens  about  three  a.  m.,  when 
Gayley  crawls  out  of  bed  in  response  to 
a  cataract  of  woe  over  the  telephone  and 

217 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

goes  out  nine  miles  hither  or  yon  to  haul 
in  some  foundered  brother.  Gayley  has 
a  soft  heart  and  is  always  going  out  over 
the  country  at  night  to  reason  with  some 
erring  engine;  but  since  last  April  first, 
when  he  traveled  six  miles  at  two  a.  m. 
in  response  to  a  call  and  found  a  toy  auto- 
mobile lying  bottom-side  up  in  the  road, 
he  has  become  suspicious  and  embittered, 
and  has  raised  his  prices. 

At  six  a.  m.  Worley  Gates,  who  farms 
eight  miles  south,  comes  in  to  catch  an 
early  train  and  delivers  the  first  bulletin. 
The  roads  to  the  south  are  drying  fast, 
but  he  went  down  the  clay  hill  sidewise 
and  had  to  go  through  the  bottom  on  low. 
At  seven,  Wimble  Horn  and  Colonel  Ack- 
ley  and  Sim  Bone  drop  in  while  waiting 
for  breakfast.  Bone  thinks  he'll  drive  to 
Millford,  but  doesn't  think  he  can  get  in 
an  hour's  business  and  get  back  by  noon. 

This  starts  the  first  debate  of  the  day, 
Colonel    Ackley    contending    that    he    has 

218 


THE    AUTO    GAME 


done  the  distance  easily  in  an  hour-ten, 
and  Sim  being  frankly  incredulous.  Ex- 
perts decide  that  it  can  be  done  with  good 
roads.  Colonel  says  he  can  do  it  in  mud 
and  can  take  the  hills  on  high;  says  he 
never  goes  into  low  for  anything.  Bill 
Elwin,  one  of  our  gasless  experts,  reminds 
him  of  the  time  he  couldn't  get  up  Foster's 
Hill  on  second  and  was  passed  by  three 
automobiles  and  fourteen  road  roaches. 
This  is  a  distinct  breach  of  etiquette  on 
Bill's  part,  for  he  was  riding  with  Colonel 
at  the  time  and  should  have  upheld  him. 
The  discussion  is  just  getting  good  when 
Ackley's  wife  calls  him  home  to  breakfast 
over  the  'phone,  and  the  first  tourist  of 
the  day  comes  in. 

He  has  come  from  the  west  and  has  had 
heavy  weather.  He  asks  about  the  roads 
east.  Gibb  Ogle,  our  leading  pessimist, 
hastens  to  inform  him  that  very  likely 
the  roads  are  impassable,  because  the 
Highway    Commissioners    have    been    im- 

219 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

proving  them.  Out  our  way  road  improve- 
ment consists  of  tearing  the  roads  out 
with  a  scraper  and  heaping  them  up  in 
the  middle.  It  takes  a  road  almost  a  year 
to  recover  from  a  good,  thorough  case  of 
improvement. 

The  stranger  goes  on  dejectedly,  and 
about  nine  a.  m.  young  Andy  Link  roars 
in  with  his  father's  car,  which  he  has  taken 
away  from  the  old  man  and  converted 
into  a  racer  by  the  simple  process  of  taking 
off  the  muffler  and  increasing  the  noise 
to  one  hundred  miles  per  hour.  Andy  de- 
clares that  there  has  been  no  rain  to  the 
northwest  and  that  he  has  done  sixty 
miles  already  this  morning,  but  can't  get 
his  carbureter  to  working  properly,  as 
usual.  By  this  time  several  owners  and 
a  dozen  critics  have  assembled,  and  the 
morning  debate  on  gasoline  versus  motor 
spirit  takes  place.  It  ends  a  tie  and  both 
sides  badly  winded,  when  Pelty  Amthorne 
drives  in,  very  mad.    He  has  been  over  to 

220 


THE   AUTO    GAME 

Paynesville  and  back.  This  is  only  twenty 
miles,  but  owing  to  the  juicy  and  elusive 
condition  of  the  roads,  his  rear  wheels 
have  traveled  upward  of  two  thousand 
miles  in  negotiating  the  distance  and  he 
has  worn  out  two  rear  casings. 

Right  here  I  wish  to  state  that  Home- 
burg  roads  are  not  always  muddy.  We 
average  three  months  of  beautiful,  smooth, 
resilient  and  joltless  roads  each  year.  The 
remaining  nine  months,  however,  I  men- 
tion with  pain.  Illinois  boosters  say  our 
beautiful  rich  black  soil  averages  ten  feet  in 
depth,  but  I  think  this  understates  the  case 
—  at  least  our  beautiful  black  dirt  roads 
seem  to  be  deeper  than  that  in  the  spring. 
What  we  need  in  the  spring  in  Illinois  are 
locks  and  harbor  lights,  and  the  man  who 
invents  an  automobile  buoyant  enough  to 
float  on  its  stomach  and  paddle  its  way 
swiftly  to  and  fro  on  the  heaving  bosom 
of  our  April  roads  will  be  a  public  bene- 
factor. 

221 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 


Pelty  is  justly  indignant,  because  he 
had  hoped  to  get  another  thousand  miles 
of  actual  travel  out  of  his  tires.  We  sym- 
pathize with  him,  but  in  the  middle  of 
his  grief  Chet  Frazier  drives  up.  When 
he  sees  his  ancient  enemy,  he  climbs  out 
of  his  car,  comes  hastily  over  to  where 
Pelty  is  erupting,  and  starts  trading  autos 
with  him. 

Did  you  ever  hear  a  couple  of  seasoned 
horse  traders  discussing  each  other's  wares  ? 
Horse  traders  are  considerate  and  tender 
of  each  other's  feelings  compared  with 
two  rural  automobile  owners  who  are 
talking  swap  with  any  enthusiasm. 

"  Hello,  Pelty,"  says  Chet.  "  Separator 
busted  again?  " 

Everybody  laughs,  and  Chet  walks  all 
around  the  machine.  "  Why,  it  ain't  a 
separator  at  all,"  he  finally  says.  "  What 
is  it,  Pelty?  " 

"  If  you'd  ever  owned  an  automobile 
you'd   know,"   grunts   Amthorne,    hauling 

222 


THE   AUTO    GAME 


off  a  tire.  "  What's  become  of  that  tin- 
ware exhibit  you  used  to  block  up  traffic 
with?" 

Chet  gets  the  laugh  this  time. 

"  That  tinware  exhibit  stepped  over 
from  Jenniesburg  in  thirty  minutes  flat 
this  morning,'1  says  Chet.  "  Lucky  you 
weren't  on  the  road.  I'd  have  thrown 
mud  on  your  wind  shield." 

"Say!"  Pelty  shouts.  "Your  machine 
couldn't  fall  ten  miles  in  thirty  minutes. 
Why  don't  you  get  a  real  automobile? 
What  will  you  give  me  to  boot  for  mine?  " 

They  are  off,  and  business  in  the  vicin- 
ity suspends. 

"  I'll  trade  with  you,  Pelty,"  says  Chet 
calmly  —  quite  calmly.  "  Let  me  look 
it  over." 


He  walks  carefully  around  the  auto, 
opens  the  hood  and  looks  in.  "  Funny 
engine,  isn't  it?  I  saw  one  like  that  at 
the  World's  Fair." 

Pelty  has  the  hood  of  Chet's  machine 

223 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

open  too  and  is  right  there  with  the  retort 
courteous.  "  Is  this  an  engine  or  a  steam 
heater?  "  he  asks.  "  What  pressure  does 
she  carry?  " 

"  She  never  heats  at  all  except  when  I 
run  a  long  time  on  low,"  Chet  says  eagerly. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  says  Pelty,  "  I  never  have 
to  go  into  low  much  —  " 

"Gosh!"  Chet  explodes.  "When  you 
go  up  Sanders  Hill,  they  have  to  close 
two  district  schools  for  the  noise.': 

"  Only  time  you  ever  heard  me  I  was 
hauling  you  up  with  your  broken  jack- 
shaft,"  snorts  Pelty.  "  You  ought  to  get 
some  iron  parts  for  your  car.  Cheese  has 
gone  out  of  style." 

"  You  still  use  it  for  tires,  I  see,"  says 
Chet. 

"  Never  mind,"  says  Pelty  wrathfully. 
"  I  get  mileage  out  of  my  machine;  I  don't 
drive  around  town  and  then  spend  two 
days  shoveling  out  carbon." 

"  Peculiar    radiator    you've    got,"    says 

224 


THE   AUTO   GAME 


Chet,  changing  the  subject.  "  Oh,  I  see; 
it's  a  road  sprinkler.  What  do  you  get 
from  the  city  for  laying  the  dust?  " 

"  I  can  stop  that  leak  in  two  minutes 
with  a  handful  of  corn  meal,"  says  Pelty, 
busily  surveying  Chet's  machine.  "  Do 
you  still  strip  a  gear  on  this  thing  every 
time  you  try  to  back?  " 

"Why  do  you  carry  a  horn?"  asks 
Chet.  "You're  wasteful;  I  heard  your 
valves  chattering  when  I  was  three  blocks 
away." 

"  I  didn't  hear  yours  chatter  much  last 
Tuesday  on  Main  Street,"  snorts  Pelty. 
"  You  cranked  that  thing  long  enough  to 
grind  it  home  by  hand." 

"Ya-a!  Talk,  will  you?"  yells  Chet 
earnestly.  "  Any  man  who  begins  carry- 
ing hot  water  out  to  his  machine  in  a  tea- 
kettle in  September  knows  a  lot  about 
starting  cars." 

"  Well,  get  down  to  business,"  says 
Pelty.      "  You    want    to    trade,    you    say. 

225 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

I  don't  want  that  mess.  It's  an  old  back- 
number  with  tin  springs,  glass  gears  and 
about  as  much  compression  as  a  bandbox. 
Give  me  five  hundred  dollars  and  throw 
your  automobile  in.  I  need  something 
to  tie  my  cow  to.  She'd  haul  away  any- 
thing that  was  movable." 

"  Give  you  five  hundred  dollars  for 
that  parody  on  a  popcorn  wagon?  "  snorts 
Chet.  "  Why,  man,  the  poor  old  thing 
has  to  go  into  low  to  pull  its  shadow! 
You're  delirious,  Pelty.  I'll  tell  you  what 
I'll  do.  You  give  me  a  thousand  dollars 
for  my  car,  and  I'll  agree  to  haul  that  old 
calliope  up  to  my  barn,  out  of  your  way, 
and  make  a  hen  roost  out  of  it.  Come 
on  now.     It's  your  only  chance." 

Shortly  after  this  they  are  parted  by 
anxious  friends,  and  the  show  is  over. 
I've  known  Homeburg  men  to  give  up  a 
trip  to  Chicago  because  Chet  and  Pelty 
began  to  trade  their  autos  just  before 
train  time. 

226 


THE   AUTO   GAME 


In  New  York  an  auto  means  comfort 
and  pleasure  and  advertisement,  like  a 
fur-lined  overcoat  with  a  Persian  lamb 
collar.  But  in  Homeburg  it  means  a  lot 
more.  It  keeps  us  busy  and  happy  and 
full  of  conversation  and  debate.  It  pulls 
our  old,  retired  farmers  out  of  their  shells 
and  makes  them  yell  for  improvements. 
It  unbuckles  our  tight-wads  and  gives 
our  ingenious  young  loafers  something  to 
do.  It  promotes  town  pride,  and  it  keeps 
our  money  circulating  so  fast  that  every 
one  has  a  chance  to  grasp  a  chunk  as  it 
goes  by. 

It  has  made  us  so  independent  of  rail- 
roads that  we  feel  now  when  buying  a 
ticket  to  Chicago  as  if  we  were  helping 
the  poor  old  line  out.  Our  Creamery  has 
been  collecting  milk  and  shipping  butter 
in  an  old  roadster  with  a  wagon  bed  thorax 
for  a  year.  Two  of  our  rural  route  mail 
carriers  use  small  machines,  except  in 
wet  weather,   and   good-roads   societies   in 

227 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

-.1  I      I   M— — — —— ■ ■ ■  ■'■     — — ■— ■      I    ■■ — — —  ■ww»«^www^^^— — — Will        I       !■■ 

our  vicinity  are  the  latest  fad.  We  raised 
one  thousand  five  hundred  dollars  last 
spring  to  bring  the  Cannon  Ball  Trail 
from  Chicago  to  Kansas  City  through 
our  town,  and  our  hotel-keeper  contrib- 
uted one  hundred  dollars  of  it.  He  says 
we'll  be  on  the  gas-line  tourist  route  to 
the  coast  after  the  trail  has  been  marked 
and  drained  and  graded  up  well. 

But  mostly  the  automobile  means  free- 
dom to  us.  We're  no  longer  citizens  of 
Homeburg  but  of  the  congressional  dis- 
trict. We're  neighbors  to  towns  we  hadn't 
heard  of  ten  years  ago,  and  the  horizon 
nowadays  for  most  of  us  is  located  at  the 
end  of  a  ten-gallon  tank  of  gasoline.  Why, 
in  the  old  days,  you  had  to  go  fifty  miles 
east  and  double  back  to  get  into  the  north 
part  of  our  county,  and  more  of  us  had 
crossed  the  ocean  than  had  been  to  Palls- 
bury  in  the  north  tier  of  townships.  Now 
our  commercial  clubs  meet  together  alter- 
nate months,  and  about  seventeen  babies 

228 


THE   AUTO   GAME 


in    our    town    have    proud    grandparents 
up  there. 

That's  part  of  what  the  automobile 
means  to  us,  Jim.  Can  you  blame  me 
for  being  so  interested  in  a  new  one? 
Maybe  it  will  have  some  contrivance  for 
scaring  cows  out  of  a  narrow  road. 


229 


X 

THE    HOMEBURG    TELEPHONE    EXCHANGE 

What  Would  Happen   if  We    Tried  to  Get 
Along  With  a  City  Operator 

ALL  right,  Jim!  Having  now  com- 
pleted the  task  of  telephoning  to 
Murray  Hill  several  thousand  and 
something,  I'm  ready  to  join  you  at  lunch- 
eon. I'm  glad  I  telephoned.  I  won't 
have  to  spend  the  afternoon  doing  it  now 
and,  besides,  I  feel  so  triumphant.  I  got 
through  this  time  without  forgetting  to 
get  a  nickel  first.  I  usually  go  into  one 
of  those  wooden  overcoats  and  go  through 
all  the  agonies  of  elbowing  my  way  through 
half  a  dozen  centrals  into  some  one's  ear 
several  miles  away,  and  then  discover 
that  I  haven't  anything  but  a  half  dollar. 

230 


THE  TELEPHONE  EXCHANGE 

Then  I  have  to  stop  and  begin  all  over 
again. 

Telephoning  is  one  of  the  prices  you 
have  to  pay  to  live  in  a  metropolis,  Jim. 
I  suppose  it  will  always  hurt  me  to  pay  a 
nickel  for  telephoning.  Seems  like  pay- 
ing for  a  lungful  of  air  —  and  bad  air  at 
that.  Coming  as  I  do  from  the  simple 
bosom  of  the  nation,  where  talk  over  the 
wires  is  so  cheap  that  you  sometimes  have 
to  wait  half  an  hour  while  two  women 
are  planning  a  church  social  over  your 
line,  I  can't  seem  to  resign  myself  to  pay- 
ing the  price  of  a  street-car  ride  every 
time  I  breathe  a  few  sentiments  into  a 
telephone.  Now  the  street  cars  never 
fail  to  dazzle  me.  They  are  a  wonderful 
bargain.  When  we  are  too  tired  to  walk 
in  Homeburg,  we  have  to  pay  at  least 
fifty  cents  for  a  horse  from  the  livery 
stable,  unless  some  automobile  is  going 
our  way.  Nothing  is  more  pleasant  to 
me  than  to  slip  a  nickel  to  a  street-car 

231 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

conductor  and  ride  ten  miles  on  it.  But 
when  we  want  to  use  a  telephone,  do  we 
go  through  all  this  ceremony  of  dropping 
a  nickel  into  a  set  of  chimes?  Not  much. 
My  bill  at  home  at  five  cents  per  tele- 
phone call  would  be  more  than  my  in- 
come. Why,  many  a  time  I've  called  up 
as  many  as  eight  people  in  the  west  part 
of  town  to  know  whether  the  red  glow  in 
the  sky  was  the  sunset  or  the  Rolling 
Mills  at  Paynesville  burning  down!  And 
almost  every  day  I  telephone  McMuggins, 
the  druggist,  to  collar  a  small  boy  and 
send  up  an  Eltarvia  Cigar.  If  that  call 
cost  me  five  cents,  I  would  be  practically 
smoking  ten-cent  cigars,  and  all  Home- 
burg  would  regard  me  with  suspicion. 

I  suppose  it  will  be  a  hundred  years 
before  we  get  over  saying  "  Great  inven- 
tion, isn't  it?  "  every  time  we  have  fin- 
ished a  satisfactory  session  over  the  tele- 
phone. But  I  don't  think  you  city  people 
realize   how   much   of   an   invention   it   is. 

232 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 

Of  course,  the  telephone  is  more  impor- 
tant in  New  York  than  it  is  in  Homeburg. 
If  you  had  to  go  back  to  the  old-fashioned 
stationary  messenger  boy  to  do  your  busi- 
ness here,  a  good  share  of  the  city  would 
have  to  close  out  at  a  sacrifice.  You  do 
things  with  your  telephones  which  dazzle 
us  entirely,  like  talking  into  parlor  cars, 
calling  up  steamships,  buying  a  railroad 
and  saying  airily  "  Charge  it,"  and  toss- 
ing a  few  hectic  words  over  to  Pittsburgh 
or  Cincinnati  at  five  dollars  per  remark, 
as  casually  as  I  would  stop  in  and  ask 
Postmaster  Flint  why  in  thunder  the  Chi- 
cago papers  were  late  again  —  and  that 
is  about  as  casual  as  anything  I  know 
of. 

I'm  willing  to  admit  that  your  tele- 
phones are  much  more  wonderful  than 
ours,  not  only  because  of  what  they  do 
for  you,  but  because  of  the  amount  of 
money  they  can  get  out  of  you  without 
causing  revolutions  and  indignation  meet- 

233 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

ings.  Why,  they  tell  me  that  business 
firms  here  think  nothing  of  paying  one 
hundred  dollars  a  year  for  a  telephone! 
At  home  once,  when  we  tried  to  raise  the 
farmer  lines  from  fifty  cents  to  a  dollar  a 
month,  we  almost  had  to  fortify  the 
town.  I  take  off  my  hat  to  a  telephone 
which  can  collect  one  hundred  dollars  a 
year  from  its  user  without  using  thumb- 
screws. It  must  have  more  ways  of  working 
for  you  than  I  have  ever  dreamed  of. 

No,  the  telephone  in  Homeburg  is  a  very 
ordinary  thing,  and  we  could  get  along 
without  it  quite  nicely  as  far  as  exertion  is 
concerned,  it  being  only  a  mile  from  end  to 
end  of  the  town.  But  if  we  had  to  do 
without  our  telephone  girls,  we'd  turn  the 
whole  town  into  a  lodge  of  sorrow  and  re- 
fuse to  be  comforted.  I  know  of  no  grander 
invention  than  the  country  town  telephone 
girl.  She's  not  only  our  servant  and  master, 
but  she's  our  watch-dog,  guardian,  mem- 
orandum   book,    guide,    philosopher     and 

234 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 

family  friend.  When  our  telephone  can't 
give  us  convenience  enough,  she  supplies 
the  lack.  When  brains  at  both  ends  are 
scarce,  she  dumps  hers  into  the  pot;  and 
when  the  poor  overworked  instrument  falls 
down  on  any  task,  she  takes  up  the  job. 
She  not  only  gives  our  telephone  a  voice, 
but  she  gives  it  feet  and  hands  and  some- 
thing to  think  with. 

I  got  into  a  big  telephone  exchange  once 
and  watched  it  for  over  a  minute  before 
I  was  fired  out.  It  was  a  very  impressive 
sight  —  rows  on  rows  of  switchboards,  hun- 
dreds of  girls,  thousands  of  little  flashing 
lights,  millions  of  clickety-clicks  and  not 
enough  conversation  to  run  a  sewing  circle 
up  to  refreshment  time.  The  company  was 
very  proud  of  it,  and  I  suppose  it  was  good 
enough  for  a  city  —  but,  pshaw,  it  wouldn't 
do  Homeburg  for  a  day.  If  some  one  were 
to  offer  that  entire  exchange  to  us  free  of 
charge,  we'd  struggle  along  with  it  for  a 
few  hours,  and  then  we'd  rise  up  en  masse 

235 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

and  trade  it  off  for  Carrie  Mason,  our 
chief  operator,  throwing  in  whatever  we 
had  to,  to  boot. 

Our  exchange  is  in  the  back  room  of  the 
bank  building  up-stairs.  You  could  put 
the  entire  equipment  in  a  dray.  Our 
switchboard  is  about  as  big  as  an  old- 
fashioned  china  closet  and  has  three  hun- 
dred drops.  I  suppose  an  up-to-date 
telephone  manager  has  forgotten  what 
"  drops "  are  and  you  can't  be  expected 
to  know.  But  out  our  way  the  telephone 
companies  are  cooperative,  and  as  every 
subscriber  owns  a  share,  we  all  take  a  deep 
personal  interest  in  the  construction  and 
operation  of  the  plant,  discussing  the  need 
of  a  new  switchboard  and  the  advantage 
of  cabling  the  Main  Street  lead,  in  techni- 
cal terms. 

Well,  anyway,  a  drop  is  a  little  brass 
door  which  falls  down  with  a  clatter  when- 
ever the  telephone  which  is  hitched  to  that 
particular  drop  wants  a  connection.     And 

236 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 

Miss  Carrie  Mason,  our  chief  operator, 
sits  on  a  high  stool  with  a  receiver  strapped 
over  her  rick  of  blond  hair  jabbing  brass 
plugs  with  long  cords  attached  into  the 
right  holes  with  unerring  accuracy,  and 
a  reach  which  would  give  her  a  tremendous 
advantage  in  any  boarding-house  in  the 
land.  Sometimes  she  has  one  assistant, 
and  in  rush  hours  she  has  two.  But  on 
Sunday  afternoons  and  other  quiet  times 
she  holds  down  the  whole  job  alone  for 
hours  at  a  time;  and  when  I  go  up  to  her 
citadel  and  ask  her  to  jam  a  toll  call 
through  forty  miles  of  barbed  wire  and 
miscellaneous  junk  to  Taledo  by  sheer 
wrist  and  lung  power,  she  entertains  me  as 
follows  while  I  wait: 

"  Yes,  indeed,  I'll  get  your  call  through 
as  soon  as  I  can,  but  the  connection's  — 
Nmbr  —  awful  —  Nmbr  —  bad  to-day — 
Nmbr  —  They're  not  at  home,  Mrs.  Sim- 
mons; they  went  to  Paynesville  —  Nmbr 
—  I'll  ring  again  —  Nmbr  —  Hello,  Doctor 

237 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 


Simms,  Mrs.  McCord  told  me  to  tell  you 
to  come  right  out  to  the  farm;  the  baby's 
sick  —  Nmbr  —  The  train's  late  to-day, 
Mrs.  Bane,  you've  got  plenty  of  time  — 
Nmbr  —  I  can't  get  them,  Mrs.  Frazier. 
I'll  call  up  next  door  and  leave  word  for 
them  to  call  you  —  Nmbr  (To  me:  "  Hot 
to-day,  isn't  it?  I  tell  'em  we  ought  to 
have  an  electric  fan  up  here.'5)   —  Nmbr 

—  ("  It  would  keep  us  better  tempered.") 

—  Nmbr  —  Oh,  Mrs.  Horn,  will  you  tell 
Mrs.  Flint  when  she  comes  home  that 
Mrs.  Frazier  wants  her  to  call  her  up?  — 
Nmbr  —  Now,  Jimmy,  you  haven't  waited 
two  seconds.  I  know  you're  anxious  to  talk 
to  Phoeb,  but  she  isn't  home;  she's  at 
the  cooking  club  —  Nmbr  —  Cambridge, 
do  see  if  you  can't  get  through  to  Taledo. 
I've  a  party  here  that's  in  a  hurry  —  Nmbr. 
(To  me:  "That  Taledo  line's  awful.  It's 
grounded  somewhere  on  that  farmer's  line 
west  of  Tacoma.")  —  Nmbr  —  Yes,  Mr. 
Bell,  I'll  call  you  quick  as  he  comes  in  his 

238 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 

office;  I  can  see  his  door  from  my  window 

—  Nmbr  —  No,  Mrs.  Bane,  the  doctor's 
just  gone  out  to  the  McCord  farm.  If  you 
hurry,  you  can  stop  him  as  he  goes  past. 
He  left  about  five  minutes    ago  —  Nmbr 

—  Gee,  Paynesville,  you  gave  me  an  awful 
ring  in  the  ear  then!  No,  you  can't  get 
through,  the  line's  busy.  Well,  you'll  have 
to  wait.  I  can't  take  the  line  away  from 
them  —  Nmbr  —  Oh!  (very  softly)  Hello, 
Sam.  Oh,  pretty  well.  I'm  most  melted  — 
wait  a  minute  —  Nmbr  —  Hello,  Sam  (long 
silence)  Oh,  get  out!  My  ear's  all  full  of 
taffy  —  wait    a    minute  —  Nmbr  —  Nmbr 

—  No,  Mr.  Martin,  there  hasn't  been  any 
one  in  his  office  all  day.  I  think  he's  gone 
to  Chicago  —  Hello,  Sam  —  wait  a  minute, 
Sam  —  Nmbr  —  Nmbr  —  Hello,  Sam  — 
Say,  I'm  all  alone  and  jumping  sidewise. 
Call  me  up  about  six  (very  softly).  G'by, 
Sam  —  Nmbr.  Oh,  Mrs.  Lucey,  is  Mrs. 
Simms  at  your  house?  Tell  her  her  hus- 
band will  be  home  late  to  supper,  he's  gone 

239 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

out  in  the  country  —  Hello.  Hello.  Hello, 
Taledo.  Is  your  party  ready?  (To  me: 
"  All  right,  here  they  are.  You'll  have  to 
talk  pretty  loud.")  Hello,  Taledo.  All 
ready  —  Nmbr." 

That  is  a  fair  sample  of  Carrie.  We 
couldn't  keep  house  without  her.  And 
that's  why  I  feel  an  awful  pang  of  jealousy 
when  I  hear  that  lobster  Sam  talking  to 
her.  Maybe  it's  just  the  ordinary  joshing 
which  goes  on  over  the  toll  lines  in  the  off 
hours.  But  maybe  it  isn't.  Wherever 
Sam  is  and  whoever  he  is,  he  is  a  danger  to 
Homeburg.  Perhaps  he  is  a  lineman  at 
Paynesville,  and  then  again  he  may  be  a 
grocer  in  some  crossroads  town  near  by, 
with  a  toll  telephone  in  the  back  of  his 
store.  But  if  he  talks  to  Carrie  long 
enough  and  skilfully  enough,  he  will  come 
up  to  Homeburg,  marry  her,  and  bear  her 
away  to  his  lair,  far  from  our  bereaved 
ears.  We've  lost  several  telephone  girls 
that  way,  and  when  a  telephone  girl  knows 

240 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 

all  of  your  habits  and  customs  and  those 
of  your  friends,  and  can  tell  just  where  to 
find  you  or  to  find  whomever  you  want 
found,  and  has  the  business  of  the  town 
down  to  the  smallest  details  stowed  away 
in  her  capable  head,  it  messes  things  up 
dreadfully  to  have  her  leave  us  high  and 
dry  and  go  to  housekeeping  —  which  any 
one  can  do. 

Telephone  girls  are  born,  not  made,  in 
towns  like  Homeburg.  We  require  so 
much  more  of  them  than  city  folks  do. 
When  my  wife  wants  to  know  if  hats  are 
being  worn  at  an  afternoon  reception, 
she  calls  up  Carrie.  Ten  to  one  Carrie 
has  caught  a  scrap  of  conversation  over 
the  line  and  knows.  But  if  she  hasn't, 
she  will  call  up  and  find  out.  When  a 
doctor  leaves  his  office  to  make  a  call,  he 
calls  up  Carrie,  and  she  faithfully  pur- 
sues him  through  town  and  country  all 
day,  if  necessary.  When  we  are  prepar- 
ing for  a  journey,  we  do  not  go  down  to 

241 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

the  depot  until  we  have  called  up  Carrie 
and  have  found  out  if  the  train  is  on  time, 
and  if  it  isn't,  we  ask  her  to  call  us  when 
it  is  discovered  by  the  telegraph  operator. 
And  when  our  babies  wander  away,  we 
no  longer  run  frantically  up  and  down 
the  street  hunting  for  them.  We  ask 
Carrie  to  advertise  for  a  lost  child  seven 
hands  high,  and  wearing  a  four-hour-old 
face-wash;  and  within  five  minutes  she 
has  called  up  fifteen  people  in  various 
parts  of  the  town  and  has  discovered  that 
said  child  is  playing  Indian  in  some  back 
yard  a  few  blocks  away. 

Carrie  is  also  our  confidante.  I  hate 
to  think  of  the  number  of  things  Carrie 
knows.  Prowling  into  our  lines  while  we 
are  talking,  as  she  does,  in  search  of  con- 
nections to  take  down,  she  overhears 
enough  gossip  to  turn  Homeburg  into  a 
hotbed  of  anarchy  if  she  were  to  loose  it. 
But  she  doesn't.  Carrie  keeps  all  the 
secrets  that  a  thousand  other  women  can't. 

242 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 

She  knows  what  Mrs.  Wimble  Horn  said 
to  Mrs.  Ackley  over  the  line  which  made 
Mrs.  Ackley  so  mad  that  the  two  haven't 
spoken  for  three  years.  She  knows  just 
who  of  our  citizens  telephone  to  Paynes- 
ville  when  Homeburg  goes  dry,  and  order 
books,  shoes,  eggs,  and  hard-boiled  shirts 
from  the  saloons  up  there  to  be  sent  by 
express  in  a  plain  package.  She  knows 
who  calls  up  Lutie  Briggs  every  night  or 
two  from  Paynesville,  and  young  Billy 
Madigan  would  give  worlds  for  the  in- 
formation, reserving  only  enough  for  a 
musket  or  some  other  duelling  weapon. 
She  knows  how  hard  it  is  for  one  of  our 
supposedly  prosperous  families  to  get 
credit  and  how  long  they  have  to  talk  to 
the  grocer  before  he  will  subside  for  an- 
other month. 

There's  very  little  that  Carrie  doesn't 
know.  I  shudder  to  think  what  would 
happen  if  Carrie  should  get  miffed  and 
begin   to   divulge.     Once  we   had   a    tele- 

243 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

phone  girl  who  did  this.  She  was  a  pert 
young  thing  who  had  come  to  town  with 
her  family  a  short  time  before.  It  was  a 
mistake  to  hire  her  —  telephone  girls 
should  be  watched  and  tested  for  discre- 
tion from  babyhood  up  —  but  our  direct- 
ors did  it,  and  because  she  showed  a  pas- 
sion for  literature  and  gum  and  very  little 
for  work,  they  fired  her  in  three  months. 
She  left  with  reluctance,  but  she  talked 
with  enthusiasm;  and  Homeburg  was  an 
armed  camp  for  a  long  time. 

Goodness  knows  we  have  enough  trouble 
with  our  telephone  even  with  Carrie  to 
supply  discretion  for  the  whole  town. 
Party  lines  and  rubber  ears  are  the  source 
of  all  our  woe.  You  know  what  a  party 
line  is,  of  course.  It's  a  line  on  which 
you  can  have  a  party  and  gab  merrily 
back  and  forth  for  forty  minutes,  while 
some  other  subscriber  is  wildly  dancing 
with  impatience.  Most  of  our  lines  have 
four   subscribers    apiece,    and    it's   just    as 

244 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 

hard  to  live  in  friendliness  on  a  party  line 
as  it  is  for  four  families  to  get  along  good- 
naturedly  in  the  same  house. 

There's  Mrs.  Sim  Askinson,  for  instance. 
She's  a  good  woman  and  her  pies  have 
produced  more  deep  religious  satisfaction 
at  the  Methodist  church  socials  than  many 
a  sermon.  But  St.  Peter  himself  couldn't 
live  on  the  same  telephone  line  with  her. 
She's  polite  and  refined  in  any  other  way, 
but  when  she  gets  on  a  telephone  line  she's 
a  hostile  monopolist.  Early  in  the  morn- 
ing she  grabs  it  and  holds  it  fiercely  against 
all  comers,  while  talking  with  her  friends 
about  the  awful  time  she  had  the  night 
before  when  the  cold  water  faucet  in  the 
kitchen  began  to  drip.  Mrs.  Askinson 
can  talk  an  hour  on  this  fertile  subject, 
stopping  each  minute  or  two  to  say,  with 
the  most  corrosive  dignity,  to  some  poor 
victim  who  is  wiggling  his  receiver  hook: 
"  Please  get  off  this  line,  whoever  you  are. 
Haven't  you  any  manners?     I'm  talking, 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

mmm mmmmmmmm m •MOBn __________________ _— _. —— .. — — — — __ MM^B ma 

and  I'll  talk  till  I  get  through."  And 
then,  like  as  not,  when  she's  through, 
she'll  leave  the  receiver  down  so  that  no 
one  else  will  be  able  to  talk  —  thus  hold- 
ing the  line  in  instant  readiness  when  an- 
other fit  of  conversation  comes  on.  Seven 
party  lines  have  revolted  in  succession 
and  have  demanded  that  Mrs.  Askinson 
be  taken  off  and  wished  on  to  some  one 
else,  and  Sim  is  mighty  worried.  His 
wife  has  lost  him  so  many  friends  that 
he  doubts  if  he  will  be  able  to  run  for  the 
town  board  next  year. 

We're  a  nice,  peaceable  folk  in  Home- 
burg,  face  to  face.  But  like  every  one 
else,  we  lay  aside  our  manners  when  we 
get  on  the  wires  and  push  and  elbow  each 
other  a  good  deal.  Funny  what  a  differ- 
ence it  makes  when  you  are  talking  into 
a  formless  void  to  some  strange  human 
voice.  I've  never  said:  "  Get  out  of  here,'1 
to  any  one  in  my  office  yet,  but  when 
some  one  intrudes  on  my  electric  conver- 

246 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 


sation,  even  by  mistake,  I  boil  with  rage 
and  I  yell  with  the  utmost  fervor  and 
indignation:  "Get  off  this  line!  Don't 
you  know  any  better  than  to  ring  in?3 
And  the  other  person  comes  right  back 
with:  "Well,  you  big  hog,  I've  waited 
ten  minutes,  and  I'll  ring  all  I  want!  " 
And  then  I  say  something  more,  and 
something  is  said  to  me  that  eats  a  little 
semicircular  spot  out  of  the  edge  of  my 
ear.  It's  mighty  lucky  neither  of  us  knows 
who  is  talking.  Suppose  Carrie  should 
tell.  As  I  say,  Carrie  holds  us  in  the  hol- 
low of  her  hand. 

But  the  rubber  ear  is  even  worse  than 
the  Berkshire  manners.  A  rubber  ear 
is  one  that  is  always  stretching  itself  over 
some  telephone  line  to  hear  a  conversa- 
tion which  doesn't  concern  it.  For  a  long 
time  we  were  singularly  obtuse  about 
this  little  point  of  etiquette  in  the  country. 
The  fact  that  all  the  bells  on  a  line  rang 
with  every  call  was  a  constant  temptation 

247 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 


to  sit  in  when  we  weren't  wanted.  We 
listened  to  other  people's  conversations 
when  we  felt  like  it.  It  amused  us,  and 
why  shouldn't  we?  We  rented  our  tele- 
phone and  we  had  a  right  to  pick  it  up 
and  soak  in  everything  that  was  going 
through  it. 

When  the  exchange  was  first  put  in, 
fifteen  years  ago,  more  than  one  Home- 
burg  woman  used  to  wash  her  dishes  with 
the  telephone  receiver  strapped  tightly 
to  her  ear,  dropping  into  the  conversation 
whenever  she  felt  that  she  could  contrib- 
ute something  of  interest.  As  for  the 
country  lines,  it  was  the  regular  thing, 
and  nobody  minded  it  at  all.  That  was 
what  killed  the  first  line  out  of  Homeburg. 
It  had  fourteen  subscribers  and  every 
one  was  hitched  on  the  same  wire.  For 
a  month  everything  went  nicely.  Then 
old  man  Miller  got  mad  at  two  neighbors 
who  were  sort  of  sizing  him  up  over  the 
wire,    and    quit   speaking   to   them.      And 

248 


THE  TELEPHONE  EXCHANGE 

Mrs.  Ames  was  caught  gossiping,  and  a 
quarrel  ensued  in  which  about  half  the 
line  took  part,  all  being  on  the  wire  and 
handy.  Young  Frank  Anderson  heard 
Barney  DeWolf  making  an  engagement 
with  his  girl  and  licked  Barney.  One 
thing  led  to  another  until  not  a  subscriber 
would  speak  to  another  one,  and  the  line 
just  naturally  pined  away. 

Etiquette  has  tightened  up  a  lot  since 
then.  Still,  we  have  rubber  ears  to-day, 
and  they  cause  half  the  trouble  in  Home- 
burg.  You  see,  the  telephone  has  entirely 
driven  out  the  back  fence  as  a  medium 
of  gossip.  It  offers  so  much  wider  oppor- 
tunities. Nowadays  it  does  all  the  busi- 
ness which  begins  with:  "  Don't  breathe 
this  to  a  soul,  but  I  just  heard  —  "  and 
half  the  time  some  uninvited  listener  with 
an  ear  like  a  graphophone  horn  is  drink- 
ing in  the  details,  to  be  published  abroad 
later.  Mrs.  Cal  Saunders  had  our  worst 
case  of  gummy  ear  up  to  a  couple  of  years 

249 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

ago,  and  broke  up  two  engagements  by 
listening  too  much.  But  she  doesn't  do 
it  any  more.     Clayt  Emerson  cured  her. 

Something  had  to  be  done  for  the  good 
of  the  town  and  Clayt,  who  lived  on  the 
same  line  with  her,  conceived  the  plan  of 
letting  Mrs.  Saunders  hear  something 
worth  while  just  to  keep  her  busy  and 
happy.  So  he  called  up  Wimble  Horn 
and  talked  casually  until  he  heard  the 
little  click  which  meant  that  Mrs.  Saun- 
ders had  focused  her  large  receptive  ear 
on  the  conversation.  Then  he  told  Horn 
that  he  was  going  to  burn  the  darn  stuff 
up,  trade  being  bad,  anyway.  Wimble 
offered  to  help  him,  and  for  three  nights 
they  talked  mysteriously  about  the  crime, 
mentioning  more  plotters,  while  Mrs.  Cal 
hung  on  the  line  with  her  eyes  bulging 
out,  and  confided  the  secret  to  all  the 
friends  she  had. 

Finally  on  Friday  night,  Policeman 
Costello,  who  was  in  the  deal,  told  Clayt 

250 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 

that  the  expected  had  happened  and  that 
Mrs.  Saunders  had  told  him  about  the 
horrible  incendiary  plot  which  was  being 
hatched.  Saturday  night  came,  and  Cos- 
tello  refused  to  go  to  Clayt's  store  unless 
Mrs.  Saunders  would  come  and  denounce 
the  villains,  who  were  among  our  most 
respected  citizens.  So  Mrs.  Saunders 
finally  agreed,  in  fear  and  trembling,  and, 
taking  a  couple  of  her  firmest  friends,  she 
led  Policeman  Costello  down  to  Clayt's 
restaurant  at  midnight,  and,  sure  enough, 
there  was  a  light  in  the  back  part.  Cos- 
tello burst  open  the  door,  and  when  they 
all  rushed  down  on  the  scene  of  the  crime, 
they  found  Clayt  and  half  a  dozen  of  us 
manfully  smoking  up  a  box  of  stogies 
which  a  slick  traveling  man  had  unloaded 
on  him.  Mrs.  Saunders  insisted  that  crime 
was  about  to  be  committed  and  got  so  ex- 
cited that  she  repeated  Clayt's  exactwords  — 
in  the  middle  of  which  a  great  light  came 
to  her,  and  she  said  she  was  going  home. 

251 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

"  I  think  you  had  better,"  said  Clayt, 
"  and  I'll  tell  you  something  more.  You 
listen  to  other  people's  affairs  more  than 
is  good  for  you." 

But  she  hasn't  since. 

Of  course  you  don't  have  these  troubles. 
But  whenever  I  see  New  York  people 
harboring  telephones  in  their  homes  which 
absolutely  decline  to  be  civil  until  you 
feed  them  five  cents,  I  think  of  our  Home- 
burg  blessings  and  am  content.  Six  dol- 
lars a  year  buys  a  telephone  at  home, 
and  about  the  only  families  which  haven't 
telephones  are  a  few  widows  who  live 
frugally  on  nothing  a  year,  and  old  Mr. 
Stephens,  who  has  one  hundred  thousand 
dollars  loaned  out  on  mortgages  and  spends 
half  an  hour  picking  out  the  biggest  eggs 
when  he  buys  half  a  dozen.  There  isn't 
a  farm  within  ten  miles  which  isn't  con- 
nected with  the  town,  and  while  the  desk 
'phone  is  a  novelty  with  us  and  we  still 
have  to  grind   away   at   a   handle  to   get 

252 


THE  TELEPHONE   EXCHANGE 

Central,  we  can  put  just  as  much  conver- 
sation into  the  transmitter  and  take  just 
as  much  out  of  the  receiver  as  if  we  were 
connected  with  a  million  telephones.  Our 
Homeburg  'phones  are  old-fashioned;  and 
the  lines  sound  as  if  eleven  million  bees 
were  holding  indignation  meetings  on 
them,  but  they  have  made  a  big  family 
out  of  three  whole  counties,  and  I  guess 
they  will  take  care  of  us  all  right  —  so 
long  as  Carrie  holds  out  and  we  can  keep 
that  Sam  fellow  where  he  belongs. 


253 


XI 

A    HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

Where  Woman  is  Allowed  to  Vote  and  Man 

Has  To 

WELL,  Jim,  you've  taken  me  to 
see  a  great  many  wonderful 
sights  in  this  municipal  mon- 
strosity of  yours,  but  I  don't  believe  one 
of  them  has  interested  me  as  much  as  this 
parade.  I've  worn  three  fat  men  on  my 
toes  for  an  hour  to  get  a  chance  to  watch 
it,  but  it  was  worth  the  agony.  Think  of 
it  —  at  home  we  are  doing  well  to  get  an 
attendance  of  two  thousand  at  a  fire. 
Here  in  New  York  are  several  hundred 
thousand  people  stopping  their  mad  grabs 
at  limousines  and  country  houses,  and 
blocking   up   the   streets   to   watch   a   few 

254 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

women  parading  in  the  interest  of  the 
ballot  for  psyche  knots  as  well  as  bald 
heads.  It's  wonderful!  How  did  the 
women  persuade  you  to  do  it?  I  can't 
help  thinking  that  they  lost  a  tremendous 
chance  for  the  cause.  Think  how  much 
money  the  ladies  would  have  made  if  each 
one  had  worn  a  sandwich  board  adver- 
tising some  new  breakfast  food  or  velveteen 
tobacco!  With  a  crowd  like  this  reading 
every  word,  they  could  have  charged 
enough  to  pay  the  expenses  of  a  whole 
campaign! 

It's  the  crowd  that  interested  me.  As 
far  as  the  parade  went,  it  wasn't  so  much. 
Half  a  hundred  women  in  cloaks  and 
staffs  setting  off  on  foot  for  Washington 
or  Honolulu  isn't  terrifically  exciting.  I'd 
a  lot  rather  go  down  the  line  about  twenty 
or  thirty  miles  and  watch  them  come  in 
to  roost  at  night.  There  would  be  some 
inhuman  interest  in  that.  But  what  does 
all  this  mob  mean?    Have  you  New  York- 

2S5 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

ers  gone  crazy  over  suffrage?  What!  Just 
the  novelty  of  the  thing?  Well,  let  me  tell 
you  then,  you  are  goners!  You  may  not 
want  suffrage  now,  but  if  the  women  are 
going  to  choke  traffic  every  time  they 
spring  a  novelty,  you're  going  to  have  to 
grant  them  suffrage  just  to  get  the  chance 
to  attend  to  business  now  and  then. 

Me?  Of  course  I'm  a  suffragist.  I'm 
a  suffragist  on  twenty  counts.  No,  thanks, 
I  won't  argue  the  question  now,  because 
we  have  to  get  over  to  the  hotel  for  dinner 
in  an  hour  or  two,,  and  there's  no  use 
starting  a  thing  you  will  have  to  leave  in 
the  middle.  I'll  just  tell  you  the  last 
count  to  save  time,  and  let  it  go  at  that. 
I'm  a  suffragist  because  I  want  the  rest 
of  mankind  to  have  what  we've  had  in 
Homeburg  for  the  last  twenty  years  or  so. 
We've  been  through  the  whole  thing. 
Whenever  a  man's  been  through  any- 
thing, he  naturally  isn't  content  until  he 
can  stand  by  and  watch  some  other  man 

256 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL   ELECTION 

get  his.  Understand?  I'm  for  suffrage  in 
aged  little  New  York.  I  want  you  to  have 
it  and  have  it  a  plenty.  And  I  want  to 
watch  you  while  you're  having  it.  It's  a 
grand  thing  when  you've  got  used  to  it.  It 
will  do  you  good,  Jim,  just  like  medicine. 

Do  women  vote  in  Homeburg?  Of 
course  they  do.  I'd  like  to  see  anybody 
stop  them.  I  don't  mean  that  they  vote 
for  President.  That  is,  they  won't  until 
next  time.  It's  only  the  more  important 
elections  that  they  take  part  in.  Oh,  I 
know  you  folks  in  the  big  town  think  that 
unless  you're  voting  for  governor  or  for 
the  ringleaders  of  your  city  government, 
the  job  isn't  worth  while.  But  that's 
where  you  differ  from  Homeburg.  We 
men  vote  for  President  and  get  a  good 
deal  of  fun  out  of  the  campaign.  It's  a 
favorite  masculine  amusement,  and  the 
women  don't  interfere  with  us.  But  it's 
not  important.  I  mean  it's  not  important 
to  Homeburg.     We  stand  up  all  summer 

257 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

and  tear  our  suspender  buttons  off  trying 
to  persuade  each  other  that  Homeburg's 
future  depends  on  who  reviews  the  in- 
augural parade  at  Washington;  but  it 
isn't  so,  and  we  know  it. 

The  really  burning  question  in  Home- 
burg  is  the  make-up  of  the  next  school 
board.  That  is  the  election  which  para- 
lyzes business,  splits  families,  and  sours 
friendships.  And  let  me  just  convey  to 
vou  in  a  few  brief  words,  underscored 
with  red  ink,  the  fact  that  women  vote 
in  the  Homeburg  school  elections.  If  you 
want  to  see  real,  concentrated  politics 
with  tabasco  sauce  trimmings,  go  to  Home- 
burg or  some  other  small  town  which  is 
fond  of  its  school  system  and  watch  the 
women  getting  out  the  vote. 

Don't  waste  your  time  by  coming  the 
day  before  election.  Don't  even  expect 
to  see  any  excitement  in  the  morning. 
We  don't  smear  our  school  election  troubles 
all  over  the  almanac.     We  have  the  con- 

258 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

vulsion  quickly  and  get  over  it.  You 
could  stray  into  Homeburg  on  the  morning 
of  a  school  election  and  not  suspect  that 
anything  was  going  on  except,  perhaps,  a 
general  funeral.  Absolute  quiet  reigns. 
People  are  attending  to  business  with  the 
usual  calm. 

You  can  tell  that  there  is  an  election 
on  by  the  little  flags  stuck  out  a  hundred 
feet  from  the  engine-house  doors,  but 
that's  the  only  way.  Inside  the  judges 
sit  waiting  for  business  about  as  success- 
fully as  a  cod  fisher  on  the  banks  of  the 
Mississippi.  Now  and  then  some  one 
strays  in  and  casts  a  vote.  By  noon  half 
a  dozen  are  in  the  ballot  box.  The  nation 
is  safe,  the  schools  are  progressing  satis- 
factorily, the  ticket  is  going  through  with- 
out a  kick.  Even  the  candidates  stop 
standing  around  outside  peddling  their 
cards,  go  home  to  dinner  and  forget  to 
come  back. 

Pretty  placid,  eh?    You  bet  it  is.     You 

259 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

know  all  about  the  calm  before  the  storm 
and  the  little  cloud  the  size  of  the  man's 
hand  which  comes  up  about  eight  bells 
and  does  a  general  chaos  business  without 
any  advance  notices.  Well,  that  cloud  in 
our  school  elections  is  impersonated  by 
Mrs.  Delia  Arbingle,  and  she  usually  ar- 
rives at  the  polls  about  three  p.  m.  with  a  new 
ticket,  twenty  warlike  followers,  and  several 
thousand  assorted  snorts  of  defiance. 

That's  when  the  storm  breaks  —  and 
it's  a  whole  lot  bigger  than  a  man's  hand 
by  that  time.  Delia  is  a  mighty  plentiful 
woman  physically,  and  when  she  gets  her 
war  paint  on,  she's  a  regular  cloudburst. 
As  I  say,  about  three  o'clock  or  there- 
abouts, we  suddenly  wake  up  to  the  fact 
that  we  have  a  school  election  in  our 
midst,  and  that  unless  we  arise  as  true 
men  and  patriots,  it  will  soon  be  at  our 
throats.  How  do  we  find  it  out?  Our 
women  folks  tell  us.  You  never  saw  such 
devoted  women  folks,  or  such  determined 

260 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

ones,  either.  The  minute  Delia  leaves  her 
house  with  her  marauding  band  in  her 
annual  attempt  to  get  the  scalp  of  the  high 
school  principal  who  whipped  her  oldest 
son  seventeen  years  ago,  the  women  of 
Homeburg  rise.  And  we  men  go  and  vote. 
Now,  we're  not  enthusiastic  about  vo- 
ting. We're  not  afraid  of  Delia.  We've 
seen  her  insurge  too  often.  But  we  go 
and  vote,  anyway.  We  go  by  request. 
You've  never  had  your  loving  wife  come 
in  and  request  you  to  vote,  have  you, 
Jim?  Well,  you've  got  something  coming. 
It's  a  request  which  you're  going  to  grant. 
You  may  not  want  to,  but  that  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  case.  This  is  about  the 
way  it  happens  in  Homeburg:  I  am  sit- 
ting in  my  office.  I've  got  a  lot  of  work 
on  hand,  and  it's  no  use  to  vote,  anyway, 
and,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  had  forgotten  all 
about  it.  Suddenly  the  telephone  bell 
rings:  I  answer  it.  Here's  my  cross- 
section  of  the  conversation : 

261 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

a^^— — —■■  ■■in— w^— — i    i ■   ■      i>  i  ■■—»—— ■m^^— MM..  —a— ■  ii     ■  i—ni  — t 

"Hello?    Oh,  hello!  ...  No,  I  haven't 

voted  yet.  .  .  .  Pretty  busy  to-day.  .  .  . 

You're   coming   down?  .  .  .  No,    I    don't 

want  to  vote.  —  What's  the  use?     It's  the 

same  old  .  .  .  Now,  my  dear,  it's  just  the 

same    old    row.     She    can't  get  any  .  .  . 

But  I  tell  you  I'm  busy.     You  go  on  and 

.  .  .  Yes,    of    course    I'm     an    American 

citizen,  but  I  don't  get  a  salary  for  it.    I'm 

trying   to   earn  .  .  .  Well,  five  minutes  to 

cast   a  useless  vote  is  .  .  .  Oh,  all  right. 

Anything  to  please  you.  .  .  .  No,  I'll  not 

call  up  Judge  Hicks.     He's  old  enough  to 

vote  by   himself.  .  .  .  Oh,  all  right.  .  .  . 

Now,    look    here,    my    dear,    I    can't  ask 

Fleming  to  do  that.    His  wife  is  a  friend  of 

Mrs.  Arbingle's.  .  .  .  Yes,  I  can  say  that, 

but    it   would   be    a   threat  .  .  .  Oh,    the 

schools  will  run  anyway.     Now,  don't  get 

excited.  .  .  .  All    right,    doggone    it,    it'll 

make  a  regular   fool   of   me  though!  .  .  . 

Good-by. 

"Gosh." 

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HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

nrmiliBHiiiii mi   hbiiiiiibi     ■  •^hbbkwi    :        l»«HiH»«»«»—M_HaM>aiB^nH    .     i    ■■  m mwm«^^_*Si^m^_mm 

I  am  mopping  my  forehead  while  I  say 
that.  I'm  going  to  vote  and,  what  is 
more,  I'm  going  over  to  get  Judge  Hicks, 
who  is  a  cross  old  man-eater,  and  get 
him  to  vote,  and  then  I  am  going  to  call 
up  Fleming,  who  would  otherwise  vote 
against  us,  and  tell  him  that  if  he  doesn't 
support  our  ticket,  our  grocery  account 
will  go  elsewhere.  I  hate  to  do  that  like 
the  mischief.  It  isn't  considered  ethical 
in  national  elections.  But  somehow  we 
can't  stop  and  discuss  these  fine  points 
at  3.15  p.  m.  with  our  loving  but  excited 
wives.     They  don't  seem  to  allow  it. 

I  get  into  my  coat,  pretty  cross,  and  go 
down-stairs.  Homeburg  is  frantically 
awake.  Down  the  street  scores  of  pa- 
triots are  marching  to  the  polls.  They  are 
not  marching  in  lock-step,  but  most  of 
them  are  under  guard  just  the  same.  Mrs. 
Chet  Frazier,  pale  but  determined,  is 
towing  Chet  out  of  his  store.  Mrs.  Wimble 
Horn  is  hurrying  down  the  street  with  an 

263 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

umbrella  in  one  hand  and  Wimble  in  the 
other.  From  the  post-office  comes  Post- 
master Flint  emitting  loud  wails.  It  is 
against  the  law  to  leave  the  post-office 
unoccupied,  but  he  can  thresh  that  out 
with  his  wife  at  home  after  he  has  voted. 
Attorney  Briggs  was  going  to  Chicago  this 
afternoon,  but  I  notice  he  is  coming  back 
from  the  depot.  Mrs.  Briggs  is  bringing 
him.  If  I  know  anything  about  rage,  At- 
torney Briggs  is  ready  to  masticate  barbed 
wire.  His  arms  are  making  a  blue  haze 
as  they  revolve.  But  he's  coming  back  to 
vote.  He  can  go  to  Chicago  to-morrow, 
but  the  nation  must  be  saved  before  five 
o'clock. 

I  do  my  errands,  losing  one  friend  at 
Fleming's  and  considerable  dignity  at  the 
judge's,  because  the  judge  is  an  old  wid- 
ower and  mighty  outspoken.  Then  I 
hurry  back  and  go  to  the  polls  arm  in  arm 
with  my  loving  wife.  We  have  to  wait  our 
turn  outside  the  engine  house.     From  all 

264 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

corners  of  town  the  votes  roll  in,  most  of 
them  under  convoy.  It's  a  weird  mixture 
—  the  men  sullen  and  sheepish,  the  women 
inspired  and  terrible.  Even  the  candidates, 
most  of  whom  are  men,  are  embarrassed. 
They  are  peddling  tickets  frantically,  and 
whenever  they  falter  and  show  signs  of 
running,  their  wives  hiss  something  into 
their  ears  and  brace  them  up  again. 

The  two  hostile  forces  are  eying  each 
other  with  horrid  looks.  Mrs.  Arbingle  is 
quiet  but  deadly.  I  never  saw  so  much 
hostility  coated  over  one  face  as  there  is 
on  hers.  She  is  in  her  glory.  This  time  she 
is  going  to  unmask  the  hosts  of  corruption, 
including  those  who  will  not  call  on  her, 
cave  in  the  school  ring,  boot  out  the  in- 
competents, and  see  justice  done  to  her 
son  at  last.  Mrs.  Wert  Payley,  who  gen- 
erally leads  the  other  side,  has  higher 
ideals,  of  course,  and  isn't  so  red  in  the 
face.  But  she  is  hostile  too.  No  viperess 
shall  tread  on  the  school  system  if  she  can 

265 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

help  it!  She  keeps  her  lieutenants  hus- 
tling, and  now  and  then  she  looks  over  the 
crowd  of  captive  men  on  the  enemy's  side 
and  issues  a  command.  Then  some  woman 
talks  to  her  husband,  and  he  gets  red  and 
mad  and  wags  his  arms.  But  in  the  end  he 
goes  over  and  talks  to  a  man  on  the  other 
side.  And  then  that  conversation  spreads 
like  a  prairie  fire,  and  the  men  knot  up 
into  a  cluster,  and  hard  words  are  used, 
and  a  lot  more  friendships  go  into  the  back 
shop  f6r  repairs. 

Five  o'clock  is  coming  fast.  Mrs.  Payley 
looks  over  her  list.  Young  Ad  Summers 
has  refused  to  budge  from  his  shop.  Miss 
Ri  Hawkes  blushes  a  little  and  then  goes 
away  to  a  telephone.  Pretty  soon  Ad 
appears.  He's  panting,  into  the  bargain. 
He  gets  in  line,  votes,  and  Ri  walks  away 
with  him.  There  is  a  sigh  of  relief  from 
the  Payley  cohorts  now  because  old  man 
Thompson  is  coming.  He  is  over  ninety 
and  hates  like  thunder  to  go  out  and  vote, 

266 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

but  he  can't  help  himself.  He  has  lived  in 
a  wheeled  chair  for  ten  years  and  has  to 
go  wherever  his  granddaughter  wheels  him. 
He  passes  in,  muttering. 

Only  five  minutes  more.  The  excite- 
ment is  intense.  Hurrah!  Some  one  has 
gotten  the  telegraph  operator's  goat.  He's 
coming  on  the  run.  That  probably  means 
he'll  go  to  the  next  dancing-club  party. 
Judge  Hicks  appears,  four  women  around 
him.  He  is  mad,  but  they  are  triumphant 
and  they  look  scornfully  at  me,  saying 
"  chump  "  with  their  eyes.  He  votes. 
There  is  a  commotion  at  the  corner  be- 
cause Gibb  Ogle  has  attempted  in  a  mild 
way  to  be  corrupted.  He  wants  to  know 
why  he  can't  sleep  in  the  South  School 
basement.  The  women  are  indignant,  and 
appoint  two  husbands  to  deal  with  him. 
Gibb  votes.  Bang!  The  polls  are  closed. 
It's  all  over  but  the  counting. 

We'd  like  to  go  back  to  work,  but  the 
suspense  is  too  great.     Not  that  we  have 

267 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

— w—       i      ■     iim^ii  m  ■■■-■■»   .■Mini— i«m— ^lii^— ■■■  ii-ii^— ——.—m^—— 

any  suspense,  but  our  wives  have;  and 
if  we  are  worthy  of  the  name  of  men,  we 
must  help  them  endure  it,  even  if  we 
ourselves  are  not  interested  in  the  schools. 
So  we  hang  around  and  fume  over  the 
jungle-fingered  judges  who  take  as  much 
time  as  if  they  were  enumerating  the  fleas 
of  Africa.  Finally  a  cheer  comes  from  the 
front  of  the  crowd.  The  women  beside 
us  gasp  anxiously.  Which  side  cheered? 
Hurrah!  There's  Mrs.  Payley  waving  her 
handkerchief.     We  win. 

After  that,  we  men  can  go.  The  schools 
have  been  saved  by  a  vote  of  453  to  78, 
but  it  was  no  thanks  to  us.  No,  indeed! 
If  it  weren't  for  the  women  where  would 
our  schools  be? 

We've  had  women's  suffrage  in  our 
midst  for  almost  twenty  years,  as  I  say, 
and  looking  back  over  it  I  can't  see  a  single 
dull  moment  politically.  From  the  day 
when  an  indulgent  State  gave  them  per- 
mission,   our    women    have    guarded    the 

268 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

schools  at  the  ballot  box.  They've  done  a 
thorough  and  painstaking  job,  and  I  must 
say  the  schools  have  improved  a  lot.  But 
they  have  sprung  a  lot  of  political  ideas 
which  have  made  the  old-timers  sit  up 
with  startled  looks  and  scratch  their  heads 
hopelessly. 

That's  what  you  are  going  to  find  out, 
Jim,  when  woman  begins  to  vote  for 
herself  around  here  and  to  vote  you  into 
the  bargain.  She  isn't  going  to  play  the 
game  according  to  the  old  rules.  She  has 
no  use  for  them.  She  has  her  own  way  of 
going  about  things  politically,  and  while 
it  is  effective,  its  wear  and  tear  on  man- 
kind is  terrific.  When  the  Homeburg 
women  first  attempted  to  place  a  woman 
on  the  school  board,  about  fifteen  years 
ago,  most  of  the  men  objected,  and  they 
decided  to  hold  a  town  caucus  and  call 
the  women  in.  There  were  a  great  many 
reasons  why  a  woman  shouldn't  leave  her 
home  and  sit  around   on   a  school  board, 

269 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

and  they  felt  sure  that  if  they  were  to  talk 
it  over  frankly  in  meeting  they  could  show 
them  these  reasons.  And,  anyway,  the 
chairman  would  be  a  man,  which  would  of 
course  take  care  of  the  situation. 

So  a  caucus  was  called,  and  the  Grand 
Opera  House,  which  holds  six  hundred 
human  beings,  and  about  a  hundred  boys 
in  the  front  seats,  was  jammed  until  it 
bulged.  We  knew  that  no  woman  could 
out-argue  our  seasoned  old  politicians,  and 
when  Calvin  Briggs,  who  has  planned  all 
the  inside  work  in  the  congressional  dis- 
trict for  twenty  years,  got  up  and  showed 
just  why  woman  ought  not  to  intrude, 
there  was  an  abashed  silence  all  over  the 
house,  until  Emma  Madigan,  who  is  a 
town  character  and  does  just  as  she  pleases, 
got  up.  She  stood  up  about  fifty-nine 
seconds  after  Briggs  had  got  a  good  start, 
and  she  argued  with  him  as  follows: 

" That's  all  right,  Mr.  Briggs—  You 
can't  make  me  sit   down,  Mr.  Chairman, 

270 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

you  nor  any  of  you  politicians —  You're 
a  fine  man  to  talk  about  schools,  Mr. 
Briggs.  No,  I  won't  stop.  You  know  a 
lot  about  children,  don't  you,  coming  up 
here  with  tobacco  juice  all  over  your 
shirt  front;  and  why  don't  you  pay  some 
taxes  before  you  get  up  here  and  tell  how 
to  run  a  town?  All  right,  Chairman,  I'm 
done." 

But  so  was  Briggs.  We  couldn't  help 
laughing  at  him.  Editor  Simpson,  who 
runs  the  Argus,  stepped  into  the  breach 
and  regretted  greatly  that  so  disgraceful 
an  attack  had  been  made  upon  a  well- 
beloved  citizen  by  a  woman.  No  man 
would  dare  make  such  an  attack,  he 
opined.  Then  Emma  got  up  again.  The 
chairman  called  her  to  order,  but  he  might 
as  well  have  rapped  down  the  rising  tide. 

"  I  know  mighty  well  no  man  'ud  dare 
say  what  I  did,  Lafe  Simpson,"  she  shouted. 
"  'Nd  you're  the  biggest  coward  of  'em  all. 
If   you    thought   you'd    have   to   lose   the 

271 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

school  printing,  you'd  vote  for  the  devil 
for  president  of  the  school  board." 

Of  course  it  was  perfectly  disgraceful, 
but  what  could  we  do?  Emma  was  a 
woman.  We  couldn't  throw  her  out.  We 
couldn't  even  get  her  to  listen  to  parlia- 
mentary rules.  And  the  worst  of  it  was, 
she  was  telling  the  truth.  That  was  some- 
thing no  one  presumes  to  tell  in  local 
elections.  To  do  it  breaks  the  first  com- 
mandment of  politics;  but  what  do  the 
women,  bless  'em,  care  for  our  command- 
ments? 

The  president  of  the  school  board  at 
that  time  was  Sanford  Jones.  He  was  a 
large  party  who  panned  out  about  ninety- 
five  per  cent,  solemnity  and  the  rest  water 
on  the  brain.  .At  this  point  in  the  pro- 
ceedings he  judged  it  best  to  rise  and  turn 
the  subject  by  telling  us  why  woman 
should  stay  at  home.  He  got  about  two 
hundred  words  into  circulation  before 
Emma   got   up.     Her   scandalized   women 

272 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

friends  tried  to  pull  her  down,  and  Pelty 
Amthorne  yelled  "  whoa,"  but  she  was  in 
politics  to  stay. 

"You  look  mighty  fine  standing  up 
there,  Mr.  Jones,"  she  shouted,  "and 
tellin'  us  women  to  go  back  home  where 
we  belong.  But  I  just  want  to  tell  this 
here  crowd  to-night  that  if  you  wasn't 
tighter  than  the  bark  on  a  tree,  your  wife 
wouldn't  have  to  do  her  own  washing. 

"That's  why  you  want  her  to  home. 
So  you  can  save  money." 

After  that  a  gloom  fell  over  the  meeting, 
and  as  no  one  else  seemed  to  care  to 
speak,  people  began  adjourning  on  all  sides 
of  Emma.  After  every  one  else  had  gone 
she  adjourned.  There  was  no  further  at- 
tempt to  hold  a  caucus  that  year,  and 
even  now  when  any  school  faction  desires 
to  get  together  and  discuss  things,  it  care- 
fully conceals  the  news  from  Miss  Madigan. 

That  was  just  one  of  the  many  little 
surprises    woman    has    handed    to    us    in 

273 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

Homeburg  politics.  Since  they've  gotten 
interested  in  school  affairs,  it  beats  all  how 
much  influence  they've  got.  Take  Sadie 
Askinson  for  instance.  Her  husband 
wanted  to  run  for  member  of  the  school 
board,  and  Sadie  didn't  want  him  to,  be- 
cause he  was  away  from  home  enough 
nights  anyway,  goodness  knows.  Sim  was 
stubborn,  and  said  the  night  before  elec- 
tion that  he  was  going  down  and  have 
some  ballots  printed,  anyway,  and  run. 
But  he  didn't,  because  that  night  Sadie 
cut  every  button  off  of  every  garment  he 
had  and  threw  them  down  into  the  well. 
When  the  kindergarten  business  came  up 
about  ten  years  ago,  old  Colonel  Ackley 
hung  out  against  it  on  the  board.  Said  he 
wasn't  going  to  stand  for  wasting  the 
people's  money  on  such  foolishness.  But 
he  did,  because  the  Young  Ladies'  Vigi- 
lance Society  came  and  wept  upon  his 
shoulder.  It  was  organized  for  that  pur- 
pose, and    after   the   seventh  young  lady 

274 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL   ELECTION 

had  soaked  up  Ackley's  coat,  he  said  he'd 
either  vote  for  kindergarten  or  leave  town, 
and  he  didn't  care  much  which. 

Mrs.  Wert  Payley,  who  really  runs  our 
school  system  and  once  marred  her  proud 
record  by  defeating  a  good  school  super- 
intendent because  he  didn't  give  her 
daughter  good  marks,  says  the  English 
suffragettes  are  poor  sticks  and  don't  know 
how  to  demand  the  ballot.  "  If  the 
Homeburg  women  were  ready  to  go  after 
any  more  ballot  than  we  have  now,"  says 
she,  "would  we  fool  away  time  getting 
arrested  ?  Not  much!  We'd  turn  our 
attention  to  the  men.  Every  Homeburg 
woman  would  take  care  of  her  husband 
and  argue  with  him.  Maybe  all  the  men 
in  town  would  find  '  Votes  for  Women  '  in 
place  of  their  dinners  on  the  table  one 
night,  and  sewed  on  to  their  coats  the  next 
morning.  Maybe  they  would  get  corn- 
meal  mush  for  thirty  days,  and  maybe, 
if  any  he  politician  presumed  to  get  ob- 

275 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

noxious,  he  would  be  dealt  with  on  the 
public  street  by  a  committee.  I  know 
Homeburg,  I  think,  and  before  Calvin 
Briggs  would  stand  for  the  guying  he 
would  receive  after  half  a  dozen  women 
had  gone  down  on  their  knees  to  him  and 
grabbed  him  around  the  legs  so  he  couldn't 
get  away,  he'd  go  out  of  politics.  Suf- 
fragettes? Bah!  What  do  they  know 
about  it  ?  I'd  just  like  to  know  how  long 
our  men-folks  in  Homeburg  would  hold 
out  if  we  women  were  to  get  sick  some  fine 
morning  and  remain  hopeless  invalids  until 
we  got  the  ballot.  Why,  if  Wert  Pay  ley 
presumed  to  deny  me  the  ballot,  I  wouldn't 
think  of  parading  about  it.  I'd  just  have 
the  girl  starch  his  underwear  for  about 
two  months,  and  if  that  didn't  fetch  him, 
I'd  start  cleaning  house  and  quit  in  the 
middle.  The  men  will  give  you  anything, 
if  you  ask  them  the  right  way." 

All  of  this  makes  us  shiver,  because  we 
don't  know  just  how  long  it  will  be  before 

276 


HOMEBURG    SCHOOL    ELECTION 

the  Homeburg  women  do  make  up  their 
minds  to  have  more  ballot.  But  when  they 
do,  we'll  brace  up  like  men  and  give  it  to 
them  if  the  State  will  let  us.  We  just 
naturally  hate  to  disappoint  our  women- 
folks. 


277 


XII 

CHRTSTMAS    AT    HOME  BURG 

And  What  It  Means 

N^OW  don't  urge  me  to  stay  longer, 
Jim,  because  I'm  going  to  any- 
way. Just  to  prove  it,  I'll  take 
another  of  those  gold-corseted  cigars  of 
yours,  which  would  elevate  me  from  the 
masses  to  the  classes  in  three  puffs  if  I 
smoked  it  back  home.  I  didn't  begin 
telling  you  how  much  I  have  enjoyed  my- 
self because  I  intended  to  go  and  wanted 
to  start  the  soft  music.  I  just  wanted  to 
begin  on  the  job,  that  was  all.  It's  going 
to  take  me  an  hour,  at  least,  to  tell  you 
and  Mrs.  Jim  what  this  meal  has  meant 
for  me. 

Oh,  I  know  there  have  been  better  meals 

278 


CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 

in  history  perhaps.  I  suppose  now  and 
then  a  king  gets  real  hungry  and  orders  up 
a  feed  that  might  have  a  shade  on  this  one 
—  just  a  shade.  That's  as  far  as  I'll  com- 
promise, Mrs.  Jim.  You  needn't  argue 
the  matter.  I'm  a  regular  mule  in  my 
opinions.  But  if  you  had  given  me  crack- 
ers and  cheese,  and  old,  decrepit  flexible 
crackers  at  that,  it  would  have  been  all 
the  same.  I'd  have  devoured  them  with 
awe  and  thanksgiving,  and  I'd  have  mar- 
veled at  my  luck.  Here  it  is  Christmas 
Day,  and  while  half  a  million  strangers  in 
New  York  have  been  eating  their  hearts 
along  with  the  regular  bill  of  fare  at  board- 
ing-houses and  restaurants,  I  have  been 
grabbed  up  and  taken  into  an  actual 
home  where  they  have  a  Christmas  tree! 

I  always  was  lucky,  Jim.  Every  time 
I  fell  out  of  a  tree  in  my  youth,  I  landed 
on  my  head  or  some  other  soft  spot,  but 
this  beats  any  luck  I  ever  had.  Think  of 
it!     Me  sitting  around   in  the  sub-cellar 

279 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

of  gloom  yesterday  afternoon  with  my 
family  a  thousand  miles  away,  and  de- 
ciding to  go  to  Boston  for  Christmas  just 
because  I'd  have  to  travel  ten  hours  and 
that  would  be  some  time  killed;  and  then, 
when  I  went  to  my  boarding-house  for  a 
clean  collar,  you  called  me  up,  just  as  I 
was  leaving.  There's  a  special  department 
of  Providence  working  on  my  case.  Got 
a  permanent  assignment.  And  you  are  a 
Deputy  Angel,  Mrs.  Jim.  Gratitude! 
You  couldn't  get  my  brand  of  gratitude 
anywhere.  They  don't  keep  it  in  stock. 
Say  the  word  and  I  will  go  back  and  eat  a 
third  piece  of  mince  pie,  and  die  for  you. 
I  don't  want  to  seem  critical.  It's  hard 
for  me  to  criticize  anything  right  now, 
anyway,  I'm  so  soaked  and  soused  in  con- 
tentment. I  always  strive  to  admit  all  of 
New  York's  good  points,  and  I've  gotten  a 
job  here  largely  to  encourage  the  old  town 
and  help  it  along.  But  I  do  think  that  in 
one  respect  New  York  is  in  the  bush  league, 

280 


CHRISTMAS    AT   HOMEBURG 

so  to  speak.  Even  with  such  people  as 
you  to  help,  you  can't  get  much  Christmas 
out  of  it.  When  I  think  of,  Homeburg 
to-day,  I  feel  proud  and  haughty.  You 
can  beat  us  on  most  everything  else,  but 
when  it  comes  to  Christmas,  we  can't 
notice  you.    You  don't  compete. 

Christmas  in  this  town  is  only  a  feat. 
It's  a  race  against  time  in  two  heats.  If 
you  win  the  first  one,  you  get  your  shop- 
ping done  on  the  day  before.  If  you  win 
the  second,  you  get  through  Christmas 
Day,  before  your  patience  and  good  spirits 
give  out.  Of  course,  New  Yorkers,  like 
yourselves,  who  indulge  in  families  and 
other  old  customs,  have  a  mighty  good 
time  out  of  it.  Christmas  with  a  family 
is  great  anywhere  on  earth.  But  that  isn't 
New  York's  fault.  If  you  didn't  have  a 
family,  you  would  be  dining  out  or  going 
to  some  matinee  or  sitting  around  watch- 
ing the  clock.  That's  where  it  is  your 
solemn    duty   to   envy   Homeburg   if   you 

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HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

never  have  done  it  before.  And  that's  why 
I  would  be  homesick  to-day  if  you  had 
fed  me  four  dinners,  Mrs.  Jim,  and  had 
been  a  whole  covey,  or  bevy,  or  flock,  or 
constellation  of  angels  —  whichever  is  cor- 
rect. 

I  don't  mean  to  say  that  we  get  any 
more  at  Christmas  than  you  do.  We  enjoy 
and  endure  our  presents,  same  as  any  one 
else.  And  we  have  just  as  hard  a  time 
buying  them.  There  aren't  enough  people 
in  Homeburg  to  make  a  Christmas  jam, 
but  we  have  our  own  line  of  troubles. 
The  question  in  Homeburg  is  not  how  to 
keep  from  spending  so  much  money  but 
how  to  spend  what  we  have.  The  store- 
keepers don't  pamper  us.  In  fact  they 
are  severe  with  us.  If  we  don't  buy  what 
they  offer  the  first  year,  they  store  it  up, 
and  we  have  to  take  it  the  next  Christmas. 
When  the  Homeburg  storekeepers  have 
had  a  bad  season,  it's  up  to  us  to  go  back 
the  next  year  and  face  the  same  old  line 

282 


CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 

of  junk,  knowing  it  will  be  there  until  we 
give  in  and  buy  it.  There  are  two  Christ- 
mas gift  edition  copies  of  Trilby  still  on 
sale  in  Homeburg,  and  Sam  Green  the 
druggist  has  had  a  ten-dollar  manicure  set 
on  sale  for  ten  years  now.  He  won't  get 
another,  either.  Says  he  was  stung  on  the 
first  one,  and  he's  going  to  get  his  money 
back  before  he  goes  in  any  deeper.  It  goes 
down  about  fifty  cents  a  year  in  price,  and 
last  year  Jim  Reebe  almost  bought  it  at  four 
dollars  and  seventy-five  cents  for  Selma 
Snood.  We  have  hopes  of  him  this  year  — 
unless  he  and  Selma  quarrel  or  get  mar- 
ried, either  of  which  will  be  fatal. 

No,  we  have  our  troubles,  same  as  you 
do,  and  Homeburg  is  full,  on  the  day  be- 
fore Christmas,  of  worried  fathers  who 
duck  into  the  stores  about  seven  p.  m.  and 
try  to  buy  enough  stuff  to  eat  up  a  ten 
dollar  bill  before  the  doors  close.  But 
that's  a  minor  detail.  What  makes  me 
love    our    Christmas    is    its    communism. 

283 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

Christmas  isn't  a  family  rite  in  Home- 
burg.  It's  a  town  festival,  a  cross  between 
Home-coming  Week  and  a  general  am- 
nesty celebration. 

People  come  home  for  Christmas  all 
over  the  world,  but  in  Homeburg  you 
don't  merely  come  home  to  your  family, 
you  come  home  to  the  whole  town.  A 
week  before  the  twenty-fifth  the  clans 
begin  to  gather.  Usually  the  college  folks 
come  first.  Sometimes  we  have  as  many 
as  a  dozen,  and  the  whole  town  is  on  edge 
to  see  them.  It's  next  to  a  circus  parade 
in  interest  because  you  never  can  tell  what 
new  sort  of  clothes  the  boys  are  going  to 
spring  on  us.  In  the  grand  old  days  when 
DeLancey  Payley  and  Sam  Singer  used  to 
blow  in  for  Christmas,  they  walked  up 
from  the  depot  between  double  lines  of 
admirers,  and  their  clothes  never  failed 
to  strike  us  with  awe.  I  remember  the 
year  when  Sam  came  home  with  one  of 
those  overcoats  with  a  sort  of  hood  effect 

284 


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CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 

in  the  back.  I  never  saw  one  before  or 
since.  He  was  also  wearing  a  felt  hat  as 
flat  as  a  soup  plate  that  year  and  a  two- 
quart  pipe  fitted  carefully  into  his  face, 
and  when  old  Bill  Dorgan,  the  drayman, 
saw  him,  he  threw  up  both  hands  and  cried, 
"  My  gosh,  it  ain't  possible!  " 

Then  the  children  begin  coming  back. 
There  is  a  great  difference  between  Home- 
burg  and  New  York  regarding  children. 
In  New  York  a  child  is  personal  property. 
But  in  Homeburg  a  child  belongs  to  the 
whole  town.  A  birth  notice  is  a  real  news 
item  in  Homeburg.  I  suppose  every  baby 
is  personally  inspected  by  at  least  two 
hundred  citizens.  We  criticize  their  care 
and  feeding,  suggest  spanking  when  they 
are  a  little  older,  quiver  unanimously  with 
horror  when  they  begin  to  "  flip  "  freight 
trains,  or  get  scarlet  fever,  and  watch  them 
grow  up  as  eagerly  as  you  New  Yorkers 
watched  the  Woolworth  Building.  When 
they  are   graduated   from  high   school  we 

285 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

are  all  there  with  bouquets  and  presents, 
and  we  have  an  equity  in  the  whole  brood. 
Molly  Strawn,  the  washerwoman's  daugh- 
ter, got  more  flowers  than  any  one  last 
year.  And  when  they  leave  town  to  get 
a  job,  if  they  are  boys,  or  when  some  rude 
outsider  breaks  in  with  a  marriage  license 
and  despoils  us  of  them,  if  they  are  girls, 
we  all  feel  the  loss. 

That's  why  Christmas  means  so  much 
more  to  us.  At  Christmas  time  the  town 
children  come  home.  Will  Askinson  comes 
home  from  Chicago.  He's  doing  very  well 
up  there,  and  it  takes  him  two  hours  to 
get  the  length  of  Main  Street  on  the  first 
day  after  he  arrives.  Every  one  has  to 
hear  about  it.  Sadie  Gastit  comes  home 
from  Des  Moines  with  a  baby;  regular 
custom  of  hers.  Sometimes  she  makes 
the  same  baby  do  for  two  years,  but 
usually  it's  a  new  one.  I  remember  Sadie 
when  she  was  only  knee  high  to  a  grass- 
hopper, and  her  mother  spanked  her  for 

286 


CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 

climbing  the  Republican  flagpole  during 
the  McKinley  campaign.  The  Flint  chil- 
dren come  down  from  Chicago  to  visit 
their  aunt.  There  were  only  a  boy  and 
girl  when  they  left  fifteen  years  ago.  Now 
there  are  eleven,  counting  wife,  husband, 
and  acquisitions.  Last  year  Ad  Bridge 
brought  a  new  wife  home  from  Denver  to 
show  us.  Year  before  last  Miss  Annie 
Simms,  who  has  been  teaching  in  Min- 
neapolis, brought  down  a  young  man  to 
show  to  her  family.  She  was  going  to  be 
exclusive  about  it,  but  did  it  work?  Not 
much.  She  had  to  show  him  all  around. 
We  just  happened  over  there  in  droves. 
Everybody  loves  Annie  and  we  were  afraid 
for  a  little  while  that  she  was  going  to  be 
an  old  maid.  The  young  man  will  bring 
her  down  this  year  I  suppose.  They  were 
married  last  June. 

All  the  Homeburg  children  and  grand- 
children arrive  in  the  last  two  days  before 
Christmas.     They  go  home  to  their  folks 

287 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

to  deposit  their  baggage,  and  then  they 
all  come  down-town  to  the  post-office,  to 
get  the  mail  ostensibly  but  in  reality  to 
shake  hands  all  around.  The  day  before 
Christmas  is  one  long  reception  on  Main 
Street.     The  old  town  fairly  hums. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Christmas  is  a  good 
deal  like  a  Union  Depot.  The  approaches 
are  the  most  important  part  of  it.  By 
the  day  before  Christmas  every  one  is 
feeling  so  good  that  things  begin  to  hap- 
pen. People  whom  you  have  never  sus- 
pected of  caring  for  you  come  up  to  your 
office  and  leave  things  —  cigars,  and  toys 
for  the  children,  and  Christmas  cards. 
Men  with  whom  you  have  quarreled  during 
the  year  shake  hands  violently  all  around 
a  circle  on  the  street,  and  when  they  come 
to  you  they  grab  yours,  too;  and  you 
begin  to  talk  elaborately  as  if  nothing  had 
happened  —  a  good  deal  like  two  women 
wading  through  a  formal  call;  and  it 
makes  you  feel  so  good  that  pretty  soon 

288 


CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 

you  buy  a  box  of  Colorado  Durable  cigars 
and  you  go  over  to  the  office  of  some  man 
for  whom  you  have  cherished  an  undying 
hatred,  because  he  didn't  vote  for  you 
for  the  school  board.  You  peek  in  his 
door,  and  if  he  isn't  there  you  go  in  and 
leave  the  cigars  with  your  compliments. 

There's  never  been  a  Christmas  at  home 
when  I  haven't  been  operated  on  for  a 
grouch  of  this  sort,  and  most  always  it 
comes  the  day  before.  If  I  had  my  way 
there  wouldn't  be  any  Christmas  —  only 
the  day  before.  On  the  day  before  you're 
so  tickled  over  what  the  other  folks  are 
going  to  get  from  you,  and  so  full  of  pleased 
anticipation  over  what  you  may  get  from 
the  others,  that  good  humor  just  bursts 
out  all  over  you  like  spring  waters  from 
the  mountainside. 

On  Christmas  Eve  in  Homeburg  we 
all  go  to  the  Exercises  to  hear  the  children 
perform.  They  build  churches  in  Home- 
burg with  big  doors,  so  that  they  can  get 

289 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

big  Christmas  trees  in  them,  and  we 
grown-ups  go  early  in  order  to  hear  the 
kids  squeal  with  wonder  when  they  come 
in  and  see  those  thirty-foot  miracles  in 
candles  and  tinsel,  down  in  front. 

Homeburg  children  are  divided  into  two 
classes  —  those  who  get  all  of  their  pres- 
ents on  the  church  Christmas  trees  and 
have  to  worry  through  the  next  day  with- 
out any  additional  excitement,  and  those 
who  have  to  sit  through  the  Christmas 
Eve  exercises  with  only  a  sack  of  candy 
to  sustain  them  and  who  land  heavily  the 
next  day.  The  discussion  as  to  which  is 
the  better  way  has  raged  for  a  generation, 
anyway;  at  least  my  chum  and  I  dis- 
cussed it  every  year  when  we  were  boys,  he 
adhering  to  the  Christmas  tree  plan,  and 
I  to  the  homemade  Christmas.  And  last 
year,  when  he  came  back,  we  began  it  all 
over  again,  he  claiming  it  was  cruel  for 
me  to  make  my  children  wait  until  Christ- 
mas Day,  and  I  pitying  his  poor  young- 

290 


CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 

sters  for  getting  done  with  Christmas  before 
it  began. 

Anyway,  Christmas  Eve  is  a  grand  oc- 
casion in  the  churches,  and  every  year  I 
notice  with  amazement  that  some  young- 
ster whom  I  remember  as  having  been 
formally  introduced  to  society  through  her 
birth  notice  only  a  few  weeks  ago,  seems 
to  me,  has  gotten  large  enough  to  get  up 
on  the  platform  and  speak  a  piece.  They 
do  it  at  the  most  unheard-of  ages.  I 
believe  there  are  two-year-old  orators  in 
the  Congregational  Sunday  school.  I  get 
a  good  deal  of  suspense  out  of  some  of 
your  baseball  games  here,  especially  when 
Chicago  plays  you,  but  the  most  suspense 
per  individual  I've  ever  noticed  has  been 
in  these  Christmas  Eve  exercises  when 
some  youngster  just  high  enough  to  step 
over  a  crack  in  the  floor  gets  up  to  recite  a 
piece,  and  fourteen  parents  and  relatives 
lean  forward  and  forget  to  breathe  until  he 
has  gotten  his  forty  words  out,  wrong  end 

291 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

to,   and   has   been   snatched  off  the  stage 
by  his  relieved  mother. 

Competition  gets  into  everything,  and 
it  has  marred  our  Christmas  exercises  a 
little  lately.  The  Methodists  are  growing 
fast  and  are  very  ambitious.  A  few  years 
ago  they  rented  the  Opera  House,  put  in 
two  Christmas  trees,  with  a  real  fireplace 
between  and  a  Santa  Claus  who  came  out 
of  it,  and  charged  ten  cents  admission. 
That  embittered  us  Congregationalists.  It 
smacked  of  commercialism  to  us,  and  we 
would  not  budge  an  inch  —  besides,  there 
wasn't  another  Opera  House  to  rent.  So, 
nowadays,  our  spirit  of  good-fellowship 
on  Christmas  Eve  is  sort  of  absent-minded 
and  anxious.  We  are  always  counting  up 
our  attendance  and  sizing  up  our  tree, 
and  then  sliding  over  to  the  Opera  House 
and  looking  over  the  Methodist  layout. 
Sometimes  we  beat  them,  but  generally 
they  have  a  regular  mass  meeting  and 
make  a  barrel  of  money.     Last  year  they 

292 


CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 

turned  people  away  and  brought  Santa 
Claus  on  the  stage  in  a  real  automobile. 
We  were  so  jealous  that  we  could  hardly 
cool  down  in  time  for  Christmas  dinner. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  only  unimpor- 
tant part  of  our  Christmas  season  is 
Christmas  Day  itself.  It  is  a  sort  of 
hiatus  in  the  great  doings.  When  we  go 
home  on  Christmas  Eve,  it  is  with  a  great 
peace.  We  have  bought  our  presents. 
We  have  greeted  all  the  returned  prodi- 
gals. We  have  made  up  with  a  few  care- 
fully selected  enemies.  Our  children  have 
spoken  their  pieces  successfully  at  the 
Exercises,  and  have  gotten  a  good  start 
on  the  job  of  eating  their  way  through  a 
young  mountain  range  of  mixed  candies 
and  nuts.  All  the  hustle  and  worry  is  over, 
and  we  are  unanimously  happy.  The 
week  following  Christmas  will  be  one 
dizzy  round  of  parties  and  teas  for  the 
visitors,  and  Homeburg  will  be  a  delightful 
place  full  of  the  friends  of  boyhood,  with 

293 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

an  average  of  one  reunion  every  fifteen 
minutes  in  and  out  of  business  hours.  But 
on  Christmas  Day  nothing  will  happen 
except  the  dinner.  We'll  get  our  presents 
in  the  morning,  and  then  at  noon  the  great 
crisis  will  come.  We'll  either  conquer  the 
dinner,  or  it  will  conquer  us. 

You  know  how  it  is,  Jim,  because  that's 
the  kind  of  dinner  you  had  to-day.  It  was 
an  Athletic  Feat  —  not  the  ordinary  kind 
of  city  dinner  where  you  save  up  carefully 
during  seven  courses,  and  finish  strong 
on  the  water  crackers  and  cheese,  but  a 
real  Christmas  gorge.  Every  time  I  sit 
down  to  a  Christmas  dinner  in  Homeburg, 
I  feel  more  strongly  than  ever  that  each 
guest  should  have  his  capacity  stenciled 
on  him.  They  are  more  careful  of  box 
cars  in  this  country  than  they  are  of 
humans.  You  never  see  a  box  car  that 
doesn't  have  "  Capacity,  100,000  lbs.': 
stenciled  on  its  sides.  And  they  don't 
overload  that  car.    There  have  been  times 

294 


CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 

when,  if  I  could  have  had  "  Capacity,  two 
turkey  thighs,  one  wish-bone,  trimmings, 
and  two  pieces  of  pie  "  stenciled  on  me,  I 
would  have  gotten  along  better.  I  think 
they  ought  to  try  to  make  these  Olympic 
games  more  useful  to  our  nation  by  insti- 
tuting a  Christmas  dinner  marathon.  If 
we  have  to  eat  for  two  hours  and  a  quarter, 
top  speed,  once  or  twice  a  year,  we  ought 
to  train  up  to  the  task  as  a  nation. 

I  always  feel  a  little  bit  nervous  about 
Christmas  dinner  before  it  comes,  but  I 
never  shirk.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  isn't 
really  dangerous.  As  far  as  I  know,  no 
one  has  ever  actually  exploded  in  Home- 
burg  on  Christmas  Day,  and  we  all  seem 
to  get  away  with  the  job  in  pretty  fair 
shape.  But  it  spoils  the  day  for  anything 
else.  The  town  is  full,  in  the  afternoon, 
of  partially  paralyzed  men  lying  around 
on  sofas  in  a  comatose  condition,  like  ana- 
condas sleeping  off  their  bi-monthly  lunch. 
Homeburg  is  absolutely  dead  for  the  rest 

295 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

of  the  day.  If  a  fire  broke  out  on  Christ- 
mas afternoon,  I  don't  believe  even  Chief 
Dobbs  would  have  the  energy  to  get  up 
and  put  on  his  helmet.  It's  hard  on  the 
exiled  men  who  just  run  down  for  Christ- 
mas Day  from  the  cities.  They  don't  get 
in  on  anything  but  the  eating.  Sam  Frazier 
struck  last  year.  Said  he  wasn't  going  to 
pay  ten  dollars  fare  and  incidentals  any 
more,  to  come  down  from  Chicago  on 
Christmas  Day  for  an  all-afternoon  view 
of  his  brother's  feet  as  said  brother  lay 
piled  up  on  the  sofa.  He  was  going  to 
come  down   after   this   on   the   Fourth   of 

July. 

It  doesn't  affect  the  women  so  badly 
because  they  don't  eat  so  much.  They 
haven't  time.  It  takes  two  women  to 
steer  one  child  safely  through  a  Christmas 
dinner,  anyway,  and  about  three  to  get 
the  ruins  cleared  away  in  time  to  get  up 
a  light  lunch  in  the  evening  for  the  re- 
viving hosts.      If   there   is   any   one   time 

296 


CHRISTMAS    AT   HOMEBURG 

when  I  would  care  less  to  be  a  woman 
than  at  any  other  time,  it  is  on  Christmas 
afternoon,  when  her  men-folks  have  gone 
to  sleep  and  have  left  her  with  a  few  cross 
children  and  a  carload  of  Christmas  dinner 
fragments  for  company. 

That's  where  you  city  folks  with  your 
servant  problem  have  the  best  of  us,  and 
I'll  not  dispute  it,  Mrs.  Jim.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  nicest  part  of  our  Home- 
burg  Christmas  is  the  fact  that,  when  we 
fold  our  tired  hands  over  our  bulging  vests 
after  dinner  and  lie  down  to  rest,  we  know 
that  there  is  no  starving  family  in  Home- 
burg  which  has  had  to  celebrate  Christmas 
by  taking  on  an  extra  drink  of  water  and 
indulging  in  a  long,  succulent  sniff  at  a 
restaurant  door. 

We  have  poor  people  in  Homeburg,  but 
we  haven't  any  poverty  problem  at  Christ- 
mas. It's  a  strictly  local  issue,  and  it  is 
handled  by  the  neighbors.  Having  lived 
a  long  time  in  the  city,  Jim,  you  may  not 

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HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

know  what  a  neighbor  is.  It's  a  person 
who  lives  close  to  you  and  takes  a  personal 
interest  in  your  affairs.  A  good  neighbor 
is  a  woman  whose  heart  is  so  large  that 
she  has  had  to  annex  a  lot  of  outlying 
territory  around  the  family  real  estate  in 
order  to  fill  it.  No  Homeburg  woman 
would  think  of  constructing  an  extraor- 
dinarily fine  pie  without  sending  a  cut 
over  to  her  nearest  neighbor. 

About  Christmas  time  we  are  especially 
busy  neighboring  in  Homeburg,  and  any 
family  which  lives  near  us  and  isn't  going 
very  strong  on  the  Christmas  game,  be- 
cause of  sickness  or  trouble,  is  our  meat. 
It  would  be  an  insult  to  go  across  the 
town  and  help  a  family  in  some  other 
neighbor's  territory,  and  that  was  what 
got  Editor  Simpson  of  the  Argus  into 
trouble  a  couple  of  years  ago. 

Simpson  is  a  young  man,  a  comparative 
newcomer  from  the  city,  and  a  very  earnest 
and  enterprising  party.    He  runs  the  Argus 

298 


CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 

on  the  high  gear  and  is  never  so  happy  as 
when  he  is  promoting  a  public  movement 
in  real  city  style.  It  occurred  to  Simpson 
three  years  ago  that  Homeburg  ought  not 
to  be  behind  Chicago  in  anything,  es- 
pecially at  Christmas  time,  and  so  he 
started  a  "  Good-fellow  "  movement.  They 
were  running  it  strong  in  Chicago  that 
year.  Any  man  who  wished  to  be  a  "  Good 
Fellow "  sent  his  name  to  the  "  Good- 
fellow  Editor  "  and  offered  to  provide  a 
Christmas  for  one  or  more  poor  children. 
It  was  a  grand  idea,  stuffed  full  of  senti- 
ment, and  we  Homeburg  men  just  natu- 
rally ate  it  up.  When  the  day  before 
Christmas  came,  seventy-five  "  Good  Fel- 
lows "  were  on  Simpson's  list,  and  they 
had  offered  to  take  care  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  children,  to  give  each  a 
real  Christmas.  Simp's  office  was  full  of 
groceries  and  toys,  applicants  were  clamor- 
ing for  children,  all  was  excitement  and 
enthusiasm  —  and    then    a    horrible    state 

299 


HOMEBURG   MEMORIES 

of  affairs  was  disclosed.  Simpson  hadn't 
provided  any  children.  There  was  a  bleak 
and  distressing  lack  of  material  for  us  to 
work  upon.  In  all  Homeburg  there  weren't 
ten  families  who  were  going  without  Christ- 
mas turkey,  or  its  equivalent,  and  in  each 
one  of  these  cases  some  neighbor  had 
sternly  ordered  Simp  to  keep  his  hands 
off  and  mind  his  own  affairs.  There  we 
were  —  seventy-five  Good  Fellows  with 
boatloads  of  cheer  and  no  way  to  dispose 
of  it.  The  only  person  we  could  find  in  all 
the  town  to  descend  on  was  Pat  Ryan. 
We  smothered  him  in  groceries,  and  he  ate 
himself  into  biliousness  that  night  and  had 
to  have  a  doctor  for  three  days,  which 
helped  some,  but  not  much.  On  the 
whole,  it  was  a  dismal  failure. 

What!  Nine  o'clock?  Excuse  me,  Jim. 
I  seem  to  have  taken  root  here.  No;  I 
am  going  this  time.  Back  to  my  room 
with  Christmas  all  gotten  through  with, 
thank  goodness  and  you  folks.    You  under- 

300 


CHRISTMAS    AT    HOMEBURG 


stand.  You've  made  it  as  nice  for  me  as 
any  two  magicians  could  have  done,  and 
I  thank  you  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart. 
But  it's  my  last  Christmas  in  New  York, 
I  hope.  Next  month  the  wife  and  children 
come  on,  and  by  next  Christmas,  if  I  have 
any  luck  at  all,  we'll  join  the  happy  army 
that  swoops  down  on  Homeburg  for  the 
holidays.  My,  but  it  will  be  funny  to  look 
at  the  old  town  from  the  outside  in!  Me 
—  a  visitor  in  Homeburg! 

Do  you  know  what  prosperity  is  to  a 
whole  mob  of  city  people,  Jim?  It's  the 
ability  to  pack  up  their  families  and  go  off 
to  some  Homeburg  or  other  for  Christmas. 
And  do  you  know  what  makes  city  people 
successful,  in  Homeburg  opinion?  It's 
coming  back  every  year.  And  if  we  made 
a  million  apiece,  and  didn't  preserve  enough 
of  the  old  home-town  love  to  come  back, 
we  wouldn't  be  successful  in  their  eyes, 
not  by  a  long  way.  Well,  good-by,  philan- 
thropists.    And,  thank  you,  I  can't  come 

301 


HOMEBURG    MEMORIES 

again  next  year.  I'm  saving  up  to  go 
home.  That's  what  makes  this  cigar  taste 
so  good,  Jim.  Last  one  I'll  smoke  until 
carfare  is  in  the  bank. 


THE    END 


u  309  pages  of  grins 


AT  GOOD  OLD  SIWASH 


By  GEORGE  FITCH 
Capitally  illustrated.     12mo.     $1.25  net. 


309  pages  of  grins,  chuckles,  and  haw-haws.  Every  page 
is  a  touchdown.  —  Houston  Post. 

No  more  distinctively  American  humorous  work  has 
appeared  in  a  long  time. —  New  York  Times. 

A  book  worth  owning  and  reading  back  and  forth  and  both 
ways  from  the  middle. — St.  Louis  Times. 

Men  who  have  taken  degrees  and  some  who  have  n't  say 
these  are  the  cleverest,  most  gingery  yarns  of  the  kind  pro- 
duced in  years.  —  New  York  Herald. 

Stories  as  full  of  humorous  diversion  as  their  author  is  of 
the  spirit  of  Young  America.  Written  around  the  adventures 
of  as  ingenious  a  set  of  young  reprobates  as  ever  made  life 
hideous  for  a  college  proctor,  they  have  caught  the  playtime 
side  of  college  life,  and  exhibited  it  in  a  way  at  once  sym- 
pathetic and  interestingly  funny.  .  .  .  Breezy,  clean  and  whole- 
some. —  New  York  Evening  Sun. 

"  Siwash "...  certainly  has  a  lot  of  undergraduates  as 
frolicsome  as  ever  imitated  insanity.  The  amazing  and  amusing 
stunts  they  perform  in  the  wild  scramble  to  escape  frcm  learning 
anything  are  enough  to  make  the  Nine  Muses  weep  big  briny 
tears.  The  doings  of  the  Eta  Bita  Pie  Society  are  enough  to 
reconcile  the  most  chronic  grouch  to  the  continuance  of  the 
Greek  letter  frats.  —  Pittsburg  Gazette  Times. 


LITTLE,  BROWN,  &  CO.,   Publishers 
34  Beacon  Street,  Boston 


i(,A  laugh  in  nearly  every  line.'''' 


MY  DEMON  MOTOR-BOAT 


By  GEORGE  FITCH 

Author  of  "  Homeburg  Memories,"  etc. 
Fully  illustrated.    12mo.    $1.10  net 


"  My  Demon  Motor  Boat "  is  from  cover  to  cover,  a  book  with 
which  to  while  away  an  idle  hour  with  laughter. —  Pittsburgh 
Post. 

"  At  Good  Old  Siwash  "  established  George  Fitch's  reputation 
as  one  of  the  few  genuine  humorists  writing  today,  but  this 
book  is  even  funnier.  —  Philadelphia  Inquirer. 

Readers  of  George  Fitch's  daily  "  Vest-Pocket  Essays"  will 
scarcely  need  to  be  assured  that  his  book  "  My  Demon  Motor- 
Boat"  is  full  of  good  laughs. —  Chicago  Record-Herald. 

The  story  is  one  of  the  most  thoroughly  humorous  things  that 
has  been  published  for  a  long  time,  and  as  its  name  might 
suggest,  it  is  irresistibly  funny  to  anyone  familiar  with  gasoline 
engines  and  motor  boats. —  Boston  Globe. 

If  you  have  a  pet  story  which  you  call  the  funniest  book  you 
ever  read  —  that  story  has  a  rival.  Endeavoring  not  to  hurt 
anyone's  funny-bone,  let  it  be  said  firmly  but  not  aggressively 
that  "  My  Demon  Motor-Boat "  is  as  funny  as  the  funniest  book 
you  ever  read. — Chicago  Post. 


LITTLE,    BROWN   &    CO.,  Publishers 
34  Beacon  Street,  Boston 


Ja 


14  DAY  USE 

MTURN  TO  DeIVrOM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
ltob°^  on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subjec^^ne^e^ 


'tuC  O  L.D 


WSTTWf 


LD  21A-50m.-12,'60 
(B6221sl0)476B 


General  Library 
University  of  Californi 
Berkeley 


YB  32636 


